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Article
Treading a Fine Line: Characterisations and Impossibilities for Liberal Principles in Infinitely-Lived Societies
The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics (2013)
  • Michele Lombardi
  • Roberto Veneziani, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract

This paper extends the analysis of liberal principles in social choice recently proposed by Mariotti and Veneziani (2009a) to infinitely-lived societies. First, some novel characterisations of inegalitarian leximax social welfare relations are derived based on the Individual Benefit Principle (IBP), which incorporates a liberal, non-interfering view of society. This is surprising because the IBP does not explicitly incorporate any preference for inequality, nor does it assign priority to well-off members of society. Second, some impossibility results are derived that highlight a general tension between standard fairness and efficiency axioms in social choice, and a liberal Principle of Non-Interference that generalises IBP.

Keywords
  • infinite utility streams,
  • individual benefit principle,
  • leximax,
  • non-interference,
  • impossibility
Publication Date
February 18, 2013
Citation Information
Michele Lombardi and Roberto Veneziani. "Treading a Fine Line: Characterisations and Impossibilities for Liberal Principles in Infinitely-Lived Societies" The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics Vol. 12 Iss. 1 (2013)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/roberto_veneziani/1/