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A Soul's View of the Optimal Population Problem
De la Croix, David; Doepke, Matthias - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2021
A long-standing challenge for welfare economics is to develop welfare criteria that can be applied to allocations with different population levels. Such a criterion is essential to resolve the optimal population problem, i.e., the tradeoff between population size and the welfare of each person...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012496107
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The Purpose of Trade Agreements
Grossman, Gene M. - 2016
This paper reviews the literature on governments' motivations for negotiating and joining international trade agreements. I discuss both normative explanations for trade agreements and explanations based on political-economy concerns. Most of the paper focuses on the purpose of multilateral...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012456604
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Addressing the COVID-19 Pandemic : Comparing Alternative Value Frameworks
Ferranna, Maddalena; Sevilla, J. P.; Bloom, David E. - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2021
of benefit-cost analysis, utilitarianism, and prioritarianism in evaluating COVID-19-related policies. The relative … less aggressive control policies. Utilitarianism and prioritarianism, in that order, increasingly favor income … likely than utilitarianism or benefit-cost analysis to target young and socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals in the …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012496155
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Dynamic Collective Action and the Power of Large Numbers
Battaglini, Marco; Palfrey, Thomas R. - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2024
Collective action is a dynamic process where individuals in a group assess over time the benefits and costs of participating toward the success of a collective goal. Early participation improves the expectation of success and thus stimulates the subsequent participation of other individuals who...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014544751
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Chaos and Unpredictability in Dynamic Social Problems
Battaglini, Marco - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2021
We study a dynamic model of environmental protection in which the level of pollution is a state variable that strategically links policy making periods. Policymakers are forward looking but politically motivated: they have heterogeneous preferences and do not fully internalize the cost of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012482565
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Utilitarianism and Horizontal Equity : The Case for Random Taxation
Stiglitz, Joseph E. - 1981
This paper establishes that, far from being able to derive the principle of horizontal equity from utilitarianism, the … principle is actually in- consistent with utilitarianism in a variety of circumstances. We derive conditions under which (a) it … imposed on a set of otherwise identical individuals (ex ante randomization). The implications for optimal tax theory are …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012478424
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Spreading the Wealth Around : Reflections Inspired by Joe the Plumber
Mankiw, N. Gregory - 2010
individuals' moral intuitions. The essay then explores an alternative normative framework, dubbed the Just Deserts Theory …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012462806
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A Fundamental Objection to Tax Equity Norms : A Call for Utilitarianism
Kaplow, Louis - 1994
believe utilitarianism to be insufficiently egalitarian. Second, utilitarianism does not give independent weight to other …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012473938
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Any Non-Individualistic Social Welfare Function Violates the Pareto Principle
Kaplow, Louis - 1999
The public at large, many policymakers, and some economists hold views of social welfare that attach some importance to factors other than individuals' utilities. This note shows that any such non-individualistic notion of social welfare conflicts with the Pareto principle
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471750
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A New Measure of Horizontal Equity
Auerbach, Alan J. - 1999
In this paper, we propose a new measure of horizontal equity that overcomes many of the shortcomings of previous proposed measures. Our starting point is the observation that a well-behaved social welfare function need not evaluate global' (vertical equity) differences in after-tax income using...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471765