We characterize a measure of social welfare for linear production economies in which individuals differ in productive skills and preferences. The key feature of our measure is that it aggregates fairness gaps, defined as the difference between the money-metric utility that the individual...

Concern about potential free riding in the provision of public goods has a long history. More recently, experimental economists have turned their attention to the conditions under which free riding would be expected to occur. A model of free riding is provided here which demonstrates that...

Redistribution is an inevitable feature of collective pension schemes and economic experiments have revealed that most people have a preference for redistribution that is not merely inspired by self-interest. Interestingly, little is known on how these preferences interact with preferences for...

Redistribution is an inevitable feature of collective pension schemes and economic experiments have revealed that most people have a preference for redistribution that is not merely inspired by self-interest. Interestingly, little is known on how these preferences interact with preferences for...

Redistribution is an inevitable feature of collective pension schemes and economic experiments have revealed that most people have a preference for redistribution that is not merely inspired by self-interest. Interestingly, little is known on how these preferences interact with preferences for...

There is growing evidence on the roles of fairness and social preferences as fundamental human motives, in general, as well as in voting contexts. In contrast, models of political economy are based on selfish-voters who derive utility solely from own payoffs. We examine the implications of...

Redistribution is an inevitable feature of collective pension schemes and economic experiments have revealed that most people have a preference for redistribution that is not merely inspired by self-interest. Interestingly, little is known on how these preferences interact with preferences for...

While little agreement exists regarding the taxation of bequests in general, there is a widely held view that accidental bequests should be subject to a confiscatory tax. We propose to reexamine the optimal taxation of accidental bequests in an economy where individuals care about what they...

In mainstream economics individuals are supposed to be driven only by their self-interest. By contrast, surveys clearly show that people do care about fairness in their demand for redistribution. In this article, in the spirit of the "new synthesis" in moral psychology (Haidt, 2007: The new...