Welfare economics : towards a more complete analysis /
Yew-Kwang Ng.
- xiii, 355 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 306-350) and index.
Is welfare economics a positive or normative study? -- Welfare versus utility -- Utility measurability and interpersonal comparability -- Basic Value Judgments and Subjective Judgments of Fact -- Pareto Optimality -- The Pareto principle -- The conditions for Pareto optimality -- The attainment of Pareto optimality -- The First-Order Conditions for Pareto Optimality -- The Direction of Welfare Change: Welfare Criteria -- The debate on compensation tests -- Taking distribution into account: Little's criterion -- The inadequacy of purely distributional rankings -- Retreat to purely efficiency comparisons -- Quasi-Pareto improvements -- The Magnitude of Welfare Change: Consumer Surplus -- The origin of the concept: Dupuit and Marshall -- Hicks' four measures and the average cost difference -- Which measure? -- Aggregation over commodities: the issue of path dependency -- Aggregation over individuals: the Boadway paradox -- The approximate nature of surplus measurement -- Consumer surplus of diamond goods -- Some uses of surplus measurement -- CV, EV or Marginal Dollar Equivalent? -- Acceptability of the Marshallian Measure--The Benchmark Case of a Cobb--Douglas Utility Function -- Social Choice -- Arrow's impossibility theorem -- The impossibility propositions by Kemp--Ng and Parks -- Can the paradox of social choice be resolved? -- Revealing the intensity of preferences -- A dollar is a dollar: a 90 per cent solution to the paradox of interpersonal cardinal utility -- The possibility of a Paretian liberal -- Introduction -- Pareto Optimality -- The Direction of Welfare Change: Welfare Criteria -- The Magnitude of Welfare Change: Consumer Surplus -- Social Choice -- The Optimal Distribution of Income -- Externality -- Public Goods -- First, Second or Third Best? -- Beyond Marginal Analysis: Perspectives from an Inframarginal Analysis of the Division of Labour -- From Preference to Happiness -- Conclusion: Towards an Interdisciplinary Study of Welfare? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
"This book attempts to make welfare economics more complete by discussing the recent inframarginal analysis of division of labor and by pushing welfare economics from the level of preference to that of happiness, making a reformulation of the foundation of public policy necessary."--Publisher description.