Social Ethics and Normative Economics (eBook)

Essays in Honour of Serge-Christophe Kolm

Marc Fleurbaey, Maurice Salles, John A. Weymark (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: PDF

2011 | 2011
X, 358 Seiten
Springer Berlin (Verlag)
978-3-642-17807-8 (ISBN)

Infos

This collection of thirteen essays on social ethics and normative economics honouring Serge-Christophe Kolm's seminal contributions to this field addresses the following questions: How should the public sector price its production and services? What are the normative foundations of criteria for comparing distributions of riches and advantages? How should intergenerational social immobility and inequality in circumstances be measured? What is a fair way to form partnerships? How vulnerable to manipulation is the Lindahl rule for allocating public goods? What are the properties of Kolm's ELIE tax proposal? Would the addition of EU-level income taxes enhance equity? How should we compare different scenarios for future societies with different population sizes? How can domain conditions in social choice theory be justified using Kolm's epistemic counterfactuals? How can Kolm's distributive liberal contract be implemented? What are the implications of norms of reciprocity for the organization of society? The answers to these questions give major insight into the state-of-the-art of social ethics and normative economics and are thus an indispensable source for researchers in both of these fields.

Inhalt

Preface 6
Contents 8
Contributors 10
An Introduction to Social Ethics and Normative Economics 12
1 Biographical Sketch 12
2 An Overview of the Volume 17
References 29
Kolm as a Contributor to Public Utility Pricing, Second-Best Culture, and the Theory of Regulation 30
1 Introduction 30
2 The Marginal Cost Pricing Principle and Kolm's Precursors 35
3 Kolm on Marginal Cost Pricing 40
4 Anglo-American Contributions to Marginal Cost Pricing 44
5 Second-Best Distortions 47
6 Asymmetric Information, Incentives, and Regulation 55
7 Conclusion 64
References 65
Public Utility Pricing and Capacity Choice with Stochastic Demand 68
1 Introduction 68
2 Aggregate Stochastic Demand 73
3 The Model of Boiteux 79
4 Kolm's Generalisations 83
5 Implementation: Hopkinson Rates and Related Matters 89
6 Advance-Purchase and Spot Markets: Demand Behaviour 92
7 Advance-Purchase and Spot Markets: Optimal Public Utility Pricing 98
8 Some Lessons for the Regulation of the French Natural Gas Transportation Industry 103
9 Concluding Remarks 106
References 108
Bidimensional Inequalities with an Ordinal Variable 111
1 Introduction and Motivation 111
2 Notation and Preliminary Definitions 116
3 The Welfare Criteria 119
4 Bidimensional Headcount Poverty Dominance 122
5 Bidimensional Ordered Poverty Gap Dominance 126
6 Concluding Remarks 135
References 136
Inequality of Life Chances and the Measurement of Social Immobility 138
1 Introduction 138
2 Measuring Social Immobility 140
2.1 Social Immobility Curves 140
2.2 Cardinal Measures of Social Mobility 141
3 Comparing Two Social Mobility Matrices 142
4 Measures of Social Immobility Versus Measures of Inequality in Circumstances 143
5 The Empirical Analysis 145
5.1 The Data Sources 145
5.2 The Results of the Empirical Investigation 147
5.2.1 Measuring Social Immobility 147
5.2.2 Inequality in Circumstances 154
6 Concluding Comments 158
References 161
Partnership, Solidarity, and Minimal Envy in Matching Problems 164
1 Introduction 164
2 Basic Definitions and Notation 166
3 Envy Minimization 167
4 Solidarity 168
5 Conclusion 174
References 175
Borrowing-Proofness of the Lindahl Rule in Kolm Triangle Economies 177
1 Introduction 177
2 Notation and Definitions 179
3 Open-Economy Borrowing-Proofness 181
4 Borrowing Versus Withholding 190
5 Closed-Economy Borrowing-Proofness 193
6 Conclusion 196
References 198
When Kolm Meets Mirrlees: ELIE 200
1 Introduction 200
2 ELIE: Type-Dependent Budget Sets and Corvée Labour 203
3 The Requirements of ELIE 206
4 Kolm's Formula and ELIE as First-Best Tax Schemes 208
4.1 Statement of the Problem 208
4.2 Social Welfare Weights for Kolm's Tax Formula and ELIE: The Cobb–Douglas Case 209
4.3 Social Weights for ELIE: The General Case 211
5 Implementation of ELIE 212
5.1 The Implementation Issue 213
5.2 Incentive Compatibility of ELIE 214
5.2.1 Non-Verifiability of Gross Income and Hours Worked 214
5.2.2 Verifiability of Gross Income and Hours Worked 214
5.2.3 Verifiability of Gross Income and Non-Verifiability of Hours Worked 216
5.3 Implications 217
5.3.1 A Second-Best Alternative to ELIE: Principles 217
5.3.2 A Second-Best Alternative to ELIE: An Example 219
6 Concluding Comments 221
References 223
Kolm's Tax, Tax Credit, and the Flat Tax 224
1 Introduction 224
2 The Model 226
3 Axiomatic Foundations 230
4 Second Best: Observable Labor Time 233
5 Second Best: Unobservable Labor Time 238
6 Concluding Comments 242
References 245
Positional Equity and Equal Sacrifice: Design Principles for an EU-Wide Income Tax? 247
1 Introduction 247
2 A Putative EU-Wide Income Tax: Equity Criteria 249
3 Lognormality and Positional Equity 251
4 Positional Social Welfare and Equal Sacrifice 252
5 Value Judgements for Positional Equity and Equal Sacrifice 254
6 Positionally Equitable Equal Sacrifice Taxes in the EU: Some Illustrative Calculations 257
7 Concluding Remarks 262
References 264
Comparing Societies with Different Numbers of Individuals on the Basis of Their Average Advantage 266
1 Introduction 266
2 Notation and Basic Definitions 268
2.1 Notation 268
2.2 The Framework 268
2.3 The Axioms 270
3 The Main Result 272
4 Inequality Aversion 278
5 Conclusion 280
References 282
On Kolm's Use of Epistemic Counterfactuals in Social Choice Theory 283
1 Introduction 283
2 Arrow's Theorem 286
3 Rationales for Non-Singleton Domains 288
4 Kolm's Epistemic Counterfactual Principle 290
5 A Veil of Ignorance as a Source of Counterfactuals for Impartial Social Choice 292
6 A Harsanyi–Vickrey Veil 295
7 A Rawlsian Veil 297
8 Ideal Observer Theories and Hare's UniversalPrescriptivism 299
9 Direct Versus Indirect Approaches to Generating Impartial Consideration 301
10 Concluding Remarks 302
References 303
Optimal Redistribution in the Distributive Liberal Social Contract 306
1 Introduction 306
2 Formal Definitions and Fundamental Assumptions 310
3 Differentiable Convex Social Systems 314
4 The Separability of Allocation and Distribution 316
4.1 Existence of a Distributive Liberal Social Contract 317
4.2 Distributive Efficiency as the Aggregation of Individual Social Preferences 318
4.3 Equivalence of Cash and In-Kind Pareto-Efficient Redistribution 319
4.4 Meaning and Scope of the Separability of Allocation and Distribution 321
5 A Comparison of Alternative Solutions for the Pareto-Efficient Provision of Public Goods 322
6 Conclusion 324
References 326
Reciprocity and Norms 329
1 Introduction 329
2 Two-Party Reciprocity 330
3 Reciprocity and Norms 332
4 Third-Party Reciprocity 334
References 338
Scientific Publications of Serge-Christophe Kolm 340
1 Normative Economics, Theory of Justice, Equalities, Inequalities 341
2 Public Economics 346
3 Liberalisms 347
4 The Economics of Altruism and Reciprocity 348
5 Social Choice 350
6 Economics of the Environment 351
7 Macroeconomics, Macroeconomic Policy, Unemployment, Inflation 352
8 Monetary Economics 354
9 International Economics 354
10 Theory of Production 355
11 Economic Systems and Transformations 355
12 Philosophy of Economics, Epistemology, Methodology 357
13 Theory of Man, Psychologies, Oriental Philosophy 358

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.4.2011
• Reihe/Serie: Studies in Choice and Welfare
• Reihe/Serie: Studies in Choice and Welfare
• Zusatzinfo: X, 358 p.
• Verlagsort: Berlin
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Finanzierung
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre
• Schlagworte: Normative Economics • Public Economics • Social Choice • Social Ethics • Welfare Economics
• ISBN-10: 3-642-17807-3 / 3642178073
• ISBN-13: 978-3-642-17807-8 / 9783642178078