Equally-distributed equivalent utility, ex post egalitarianism and utilitarianism

We provide an axiomatization of expected equally-distributed equivalent-utility social welfare functions in the context of Harsanyi's impartial observer theorem. For this family of social welfare functions, we show what additional axiom is necessary and sufficient for the observer to exhibit av...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Grant, Simon, KAJII, Atsushi, Polak, Ben, Safra, Ziv
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1853
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
Description
Summary:We provide an axiomatization of expected equally-distributed equivalent-utility social welfare functions in the context of Harsanyi's impartial observer theorem. For this family of social welfare functions, we show what additional axiom is necessary and sufficient for the observer to exhibit aversion to ex post inequality. We also relate this axiomatization to our axiomatization in a companion paper of generalized utilitarian social welfare functions. Given certain richness assumptions, the only social welfare functions that belong to both families are the utilitarian.