DOCSLIB.ORG

The Erroneous Foundations of Law and Economics† Mark Glick* and Gabriel A. Lozada

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

The Erroneous Foundations of Law and Economics† Mark Glick* and Gabriel A. Lozada** Working Paper No. 149 February 15th, 2021 ABSTRACT The fundamental originating principle of law and economics (L&E) is that legal decisions should be (and are) based on maximizing efficiency. But L&E proponents do not define “efficiency” in the way agreed to by most economists, as Pareto Efficiency. A Pareto optimal condition is obtained when no one can be made better off without making someone worse off. Pareto Improvements are win-win changes where no losers exist. In the judicial system, however, there are always winners and losers, because under Article III § 2 of the Constitution a legal case does not exist unless there is a justiciable “case or controversy” in need of resolution. Unable to use Pareto Efficiency, L&E scholars have been forced to adopt alternative definitions of efficiency. Most L&E scholars claim to define “efficiency” based on the work of Kaldor and Hicks, but (perhaps unwittingly) instead use a definition of “efficiency” derived from the 19th century idea of consumer surplus, which encompasses L&E notions such as “wealth maximization,” and “consumer welfare” in antitrust. Neither of these alternative definitions is viable, however. Outside of L&E, the Kaldor-Hicks approach has long been recognized to be riddled with logical inconsistencies and ethical failures, and the surplus approach is even more deficient. † The authors acknowledge support from the Institute for New Economic Thinking and would like to thank David Mangum and Thomas Ferguson for their helpful comments. * Professor of Economics, University of Utah. ** Associate Professor of Economics, University of Utah Remarkably, virtually none of the numerous L&E textbooks even hint at such problems. Critically, all definitions of efficiency improvements in economics are biased in favor of wealthy individuals or firms, either because they are dependent on the status quo ante distribution of assets, or because they bestow large advantages on parties with political influence or who can afford to bring lawsuits quickly. Many L&E practitioners treat efficiency improvements instead as being objectively good, an error revealing that L&E is primarily motivated by its neoliberal policy agenda. https://doi.org/10.36687/inetwp149 JEL codes: K1, D61, L4 Key words: law and economics, antitrust economics, efficiency, wealth maximization, legal realism, neoliberal theory, Kaldor Hicks, Pareto Optimality 2 Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 5 II. NEOLIBERALISM AND THE ORIGINS OF LAW AND ECONOMICS ................................................................. 6 A. THE GREAT DEPRESSION BRINGS AN END TO LAISSEZ-FAIRE ECONOMIC POLICY ............................................................ 7 B. NEOLIBERALISM AND ITS “FREEDOM” NARRATIVE EMERGE AS A RESPONSE TO THE NEW DEAL CONSENSUS ....................... 8 C. LAW AND ECONOMICS FINDS A HOME AND FUNDING ............................................................................................ 13 D. LAW & ECONOMICS ADVANCES THE MODERN NEOLIBERAL AGENDA ........................................................................ 14 III. PARETO EFFICIENCY: THE REALM OF CONSENSUS ............................................................................... 16 A. THE BEGINNINGS OF UTILITY THEORY ................................................................................................................. 16 B. UTILITY: CARDINAL AND ORDINAL ...................................................................................................................... 17 C. ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY IS PARETO EFFICIENCY ...................................................................................................... 19 D. PARETO EFFICIENCY REQUIRES DISTRIBUTIVE EFFICIENCY ........................................................................................ 20 E. PARETO EFFICIENCY REQUIRES PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY ......................................................................................... 23 F. PARETO EFFICIENCY REQUIRES ALLOCATIVE EFFICIENCY .......................................................................................... 23 G. PARETO EFFICIENCY CANNOT BE USED TO ESTABLISH A THEORY OF THE COMMON LAW ............................................... 25 1. Positive Economic Limitations of Pareto Efficiency ............................................................................... 25 2. Normative Problems ............................................................................................................................. 33 IV. THE CRITERIA OF KALDOR AND HICKS: THE REALM OF COERCION ...................................................... 34 A. VALUE’S DUAL NATURE: WILLINGNESS TO PAY/ACCEPT; COMPENSATING/EQUIVALENT VARIATION ............................... 36 1. Settings: Describing Various Policy Changes and the Units in which they are Valued .......................... 36 2. Setting Qq Explained ............................................................................................................................. 38 3. Setting Pi Explained ............................................................................................................................... 40 4. The General Inequality of WATP and WTA ............................................................................................ 45 5. Compensating and Equivalent Variation ............................................................................................... 45 6. Nonexistent WATPs and Infeasible WTAs in Edgeworth Boxes ............................................................. 51 7. Consensual Uses of WATP/WTA/CV ...................................................................................................... 52 B. THE POTENTIAL-PARETO/KALDOR-HICKS/COST-BENEFIT-ANALYSIS CRITERION FOR MAKING COERCIVE SOCIAL DECISIONS 53 C. THE KALDOR TEST (CV MEASURED AS A QUANTITY) .............................................................................................. 56 D. THE HICKS TEST (EV MEASURED AS A QUANTITY) ................................................................................................. 56 E. POSITIVE PROBLEMS WITH CV & EV MEASURED AS QUANTITIES ............................................................................. 57 1. Potential Pareto Moves that Are Not, In Fact, Potentially Pareto Efficient ........................................... 57 2. Incompleteness Due to Inconsistencies and Reversals .......................................................................... 58 3. Incompleteness Due to Nonexistence of WATP or Infeasibility of WTA ................................................ 62 F. NORMATIVE PROBLEMS WITH CV & EV MEASURED AS QUANTITIES ......................................................................... 63 1. Potential Pareto Moves that Are not Potentially Pareto Efficient Moves ............................................. 63 2. Complete Inequality Can Be an Efficient Outcome Under the Kaldor Test ............................................ 64 3. Almost-Complete Inequality Can Be an Efficient Outcome Under the Hicks Test .................................. 65 4. Application of the Kaldor and Hicks Criteria Can Result in Arbitrary Outcomes ................................... 66 G. ECONOMETRICS AND POLITICAL POWER .............................................................................................................. 67 H. POSITIVE ECONOMIC AND NORMATIVE PROBLEMS WITH CV & EV MEASURED IN DOLLARS .......................................... 68 I. WATP JUSTIFIES RESULTS THAT FAVOR THE WEALTHY (POSITIVE THEORY) ................................................................ 71 J. WATP JUSTIFIES RESULTS THAT FAVOR THE WEALTHY (NORMATIVE THEORY) ........................................................... 72 K. THE COMPLETE FAILURE OF POTENTIAL PARETO IN A GENERAL PURE-EXCHANGE ECONOMY ......................................... 73 V. CONSUMER SURPLUS/CONSUMER WELFARE: COERCION, WITH LESS JUSTIFICATION ............................. 78 A. CONSUMER SURPLUS: AN ADVANCE OVER THE EXPENDITURE APPROACH .................................................................. 80 B. CONSUMER SURPLUS IS NOT PART OF WEALTH .................................................................................................... 82 C. CONSUMER SURPLUS IS NOT A CREDIBLE MEASURE OF WELFARE ............................................................................. 84 D. WILLIG’S CLAIM THAT CONSUMER SURPLUS APPROXIMATES EV AND CV DOES NOT SAVE CONSUMER SURPLUS .............. 86 3 E. ANOTHER PROBLEM WITH “WEALTH MAXIMIZATION” ........................................................................................... 88 F. NORMATIVE ISSUES IN USING CONSUMER SURPLUS ............................................................................................... 89 VI. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................................... 90 4 I. INTRODUCTION The primary aim of the Law and Economics movement (“L&E”) has been to elevate the notion of economic efficiency as the sole basis of jurisprudence. In economics, there are several definitions of efficiency, all of which are unfortunately biased in favor of currently wealthy individuals, though to different extents. Since the most widely accepted
Recommended publications
  • ELITES, POWER SOURCES and DEMOCRACY by DENZ YETKN

    ELITES, POWER SOURCES and DEMOCRACY by DENZ YETKN

    ELITES, POWER SOURCES AND DEMOCRACY by DEN İZ YETK İN Submitted to the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Sabancı University 2008 ELITES, POWER SOURCES AND DEMOCRACY APPROVED BY: Asst. Prof. Dr.Nedim Nomer: ……………………. (Dissertation Supervisor) Prof. Sabri Sayarı: ……………………. Prof. Tülay Artan: ……………………. DATE OF APPROVAL: …………………… To my parents... © Deniz Yetkin 2008 All Rights Reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………vi Abstract...……………………………………………………………………………..…vii Özet…….……………………………………………………………………………….viii INTRODUCTION .…………………………………………………….......…………....1 CHAPTER 1..……………………………………………………………………………6 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF ELITE DISCUSSION 1.1 Machiavelli and His Followers……………………………………………....7 1.2 The Classical Elite Theorists……………………………………………......8 1.2.1 Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) and the ‘Governing Elite’…………..…….....8 1.2.2 Gaetano Mosca (1858- 1941) and the ‘Ruling Class’……….………...….21 1.2.3 Robert Michels (1876-1936) and the ‘Dominant Class’……………...…..23 1.2.4 C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) and ‘The Power Elite’………..……………26 1.3 Who are Elites? ……………………………………………………………30 CHAPTER 2 ..……………………………………………………………….………….32 POWER SOURCES, POWER SCOPE OF ELITES, AND THE POSSIBILITY OF DEMOCRACY 2.1 Power and Democracy in Classical Elite Theories...……………………….33 2.2. A New Approach to Elites, Power Sources and Democracy...…………….38 CONCLUSION ..……………………………………………………………………….47 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………….……..49 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to thank my thesis supervisor Asst. Prof. Nedim Nomer. I believe that without his support and guidance the writing of this thesis would have been difficult. Moreover, I am grateful to Prof. Sabri Sayarı and Prof. Tülay Artan for their precious comments. Apart from academic realm, I also would like to thank all my friends: I am grateful to my friends at Sabancı University for making my study enjoyable.
  • Seven Atheisms

    Seven Atheisms

    SEVEN ATHEISMS Andrew Walker SEVEN ATHEISMS Exploring the varieties of atheism in John Gray’s book Seven Types of Atheism Andrew Walker Emeritus Professor of Theology, Culture and Education, King’s College London Christian Evidence Society christianevidence.org Text copyright © Andrew Walker 2019 Published by the Christian Evidence Society, London, 2019 christianevidence.com All rights reserved Editing and design: Simon Jenkins Cover photograph by PhotoDu.de / CreativeDomainPhotography.com. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license Contents Introduction 5 The seven atheisms 19th century atheism 6 Secular humanism 8 Science as religion 12 Modern politicial religion 15 God-haters 18 Atheism without progress 22 The atheism of silence 25 Conclusion 27 Index 30 Introduction John Gray’s Seven Types of Atheism (Allen Lane, 2018) is an important book for both religious and non-religious readers. John Gray, who describes himself as an atheist, is nevertheless critical of most versions of atheism. His attitude to atheism is the same as his attitude to certain types of religion. This attitude is predicated upon Gray’s conviction that human beings are intrinsically dissatisfied and unpredictable creatures who can never get along with each other for any length of time. His view is based on a reading of human nature that sails close to the wind of the Christian concept of original sin, and is out of step with most modern forms of atheism. In particular, Gray is allergic to any forms of cultural progress in human behaviour especially if they are couched in positivistic or evolutionary terms. 5 ATHEISM 1 19th century atheism Gray sets out his stall in his first chapter, ‘The New Atheism: A Nineteenth- century Orthodoxy’.
  • Methods of Measuring the Economy, Efficiency and Effectiveness Of

    Methods of Measuring the Economy, Efficiency and Effectiveness Of

    Methods Of Measuring The Economy, Efficiency And Effectiveness Of Public Expenditure ANNEX 7: August 2015 1 | P a g e TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3 2 PER Context ........................................................................................................................................... 3 3 Necessity of the measures .................................................................................................................... 4 4 Measurement and coding ..................................................................................................................... 5 5 Assumptions .......................................................................................................................................... 5 6 Definitions and basic qualitative measures .......................................................................................... 6 6.1 Measuring Efficiency with DEA ..................................................................................................... 9 6.1.1 DEA ...................................................................................................................................... 10 6.1.2 Assumption of DEA ............................................................................................................. 10 6.2 Scale Efficiency Issues in DEA .....................................................................................................
  • General Equilibrium Theory and Welfare Economics: Theory Vs

    General Equilibrium Theory and Welfare Economics: Theory Vs

    General Equilibrium Theory and Welfare Economics: Theory vs. Praxis The development of economic thought after World War II has been nothing short of protean in character, yet it can be traced, at least in part, by following a number of lines resulting from attempts to flesh-out, resolve, or simply come to terms with general equilibrium theory. As you might recall from subunit 4.1.2, general equilibrium theory came about in the latter half of the 19th century explicitly in the form of Leon Walras’s 1874 work, Elements of Pure Economics, and subsequently with the addition of graphical representation in his 1892 paper “Geometrical Theory of the Determination of Prices”: It follows from the nature of the [supply and demand] curves, that we shall obtain the provisional current price of (B) by raising it in case of a surplus of effective demand over effective supply, and lowering it, on the contrary, in case of a surplus of effective supply over effective demand. Passing then to the determination of the current price of (C), then to the current price of (D) ..., we obtain them by the same means. It is quite true that, in determining the price of (C), we may destroy the equilibrium in respect to (B); that, in determining the price of (D), we may destroy the equilibrium in respect to (B), and in respect to (C), and so on. But as the determinations of the prices of (C), (D) ... in respect to the demand and supply of (B), will result in a contrary way, we shall always be nearer the equilibrium at the second trial than at the first.
  • On Welfare Economics in the Principles Course

    On Welfare Economics in the Principles Course

    THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC EDUCATION , VOL. , NO. , – http://dx.doi.org/./.. CONTENT ARTICLES IN ECONOMICS On welfare economics in the principles course N. Gregory Mankiw Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA ImuchenjoyedreadingthesearticlesbySteveSchmidtandJonathanB.Wightonthenormativeunder- pinningsofhowweteachintroductoryeconomics.Ihavelongbelievedthatteachingthefundamentalsof economics to the next generation of voters is among the highest callings of our profession. It is therefore useful to regularly reflect on whether we are doing it well and how we might do it better. I agree with many of the substantive points raised in the articles, although I think that the current crop of textbooks (including my own) do a better job than Schmidt and Wight sometimes give them credit for. Rather than quibble with details, however, let me lay out five of the main lessons that I emphasize as Iteachthismaterial: (1) Efficiency is a useful lens through which to view outcomes. Understanding market success and market failure is a central feature of my course, especially in the microeconomics half. Adam Smith’s invisible hand is best understood as the proposition that the equilibrium of supply and demand maximizes the sum of producer and consumer surplus. The market failures that arise from externalities or monopoly power are best understood as the departure of the unregulated outcome from the surplus-maximizing allocation of resources. (2) Efficiency is not the only goal of policy.Whenintroducingthenotionofefficiency,Imakeclear that policymakers have other objectives as well. In chapter 1 of my text (Mankiw 2015, 12),I wrote, “Even when the invisible hand yields efficient outcomes, it can nonetheless leave sizable disparities in economic well-being. … The invisible hand does not ensure that everyone has suf- ficient food, decent clothing, and adequate healthcare.
  • Journal of Mathematical Economics Implementation of Pareto Efficient Allocations

    Journal of Mathematical Economics Implementation of Pareto Efficient Allocations

    Journal of Mathematical Economics 45 (2009) 113–123 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Mathematical Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmateco Implementation of Pareto efficient allocations Guoqiang Tian a,b,∗ a Department of Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA b School of Economics and Institute for Advanced Research, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai 200433, China. article info abstract Article history: This paper considers Nash implementation and double implementation of Pareto effi- Received 10 October 2005 cient allocations for production economies. We allow production sets and preferences Received in revised form 17 July 2008 are unknown to the planner. We present a well-behaved mechanism that fully imple- Accepted 22 July 2008 ments Pareto efficient allocations in Nash equilibrium. The mechanism then is modified Available online 5 August 2008 to fully doubly implement Pareto efficient allocations in Nash and strong Nash equilibria. The mechanisms constructed in the paper have many nice properties such as feasibility JEL classification: C72 and continuity. In addition, they use finite-dimensional message spaces. Furthermore, the D61 mechanism works not only for three or more agents, but also for two-agent economies. D71 © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. D82 Keywords: Incentive mechanism design Implementation Pareto efficiency Price equilibrium with transfer 1. Introduction 1.1. Motivation This paper considers implementation of Pareto efficient allocations for production economies by presenting well-behaved and simple mechanisms that are continuous, feasible, and use finite-dimensional spaces. Pareto optimality is a highly desir- able property in designing incentive compatible mechanisms. The importance of this property is attributed to what may be regarded as minimal welfare property.
  • Extended Second Welfare Theorem for Nonconvex Economies With

    Extended Second Welfare Theorem for Nonconvex Economies With

    Wayne State University Mathematics Research Reports Mathematics 6-1-2010 Extended Second Welfare Theorem for Nonconvex Economies with Infinite Commodities and Public Goods Aychiluhim Habte Benedict College, Columbia, SC, [email protected] Boris S. Mordukhovich Wayne State University, [email protected] Recommended Citation Habte, Aychiluhim and Mordukhovich, Boris S., "Extended Second Welfare Theorem for Nonconvex Economies with Infinite Commodities and Public Goods" (2010). Mathematics Research Reports. Paper 77. http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/math_reports/77 This Technical Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Mathematics at DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mathematics Research Reports by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState. EXTENDED SECOND WELFARE THEOREM FOR NONCONVEX ECONOMIES WITH INFINITE COMMODITIES AND PUBLIC GOODS AYCHILUHIM HABTE and BORIS S. MORDUKHOVICH WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY Detroit, Ml 48202 Department of Mathematics Research Report 2010 Series #6 This research was partly supported by the US National Science Foundation EXTENDED SECOND WELFARE THEOREM FOR NONCONVEX ECONOMIES WITH INFINITE COMMODITIES AND PUBLIC GOODS AYCHILUHIM HABTE1 and BORIS S. MORDUKHOVICH2 Abstract. Thi~ paper is devoted to the study of non convex models of welfare economics with public gooclH and infinite-dimensional commodity spaces. Our main attention i~ paid to new extensions of the fundamental second welfare theorem to the models under consideration. Based on advanced
  • Arxiv:0803.2996V1 [Q-Fin.GN] 20 Mar 2008 JEL Classification: A10, A12, B0, B40, B50, C69, C9, D5, D1, G1, G10-G14

    Arxiv:0803.2996V1 [Q-Fin.GN] 20 Mar 2008 JEL Classification: A10, A12, B0, B40, B50, C69, C9, D5, D1, G1, G10-G14

    The virtues and vices of equilibrium and the future of financial economics J. Doyne Farmer∗ and John Geanakoplosy December 2, 2008 Abstract The use of equilibrium models in economics springs from the desire for parsimonious models of economic phenomena that take human rea- soning into account. This approach has been the cornerstone of modern economic theory. We explain why this is so, extolling the virtues of equilibrium theory; then we present a critique and describe why this approach is inherently limited, and why economics needs to move in new directions if it is to continue to make progress. We stress that this shouldn't be a question of dogma, but should be resolved empir- ically. There are situations where equilibrium models provide useful predictions and there are situations where they can never provide use- ful predictions. There are also many situations where the jury is still out, i.e., where so far they fail to provide a good description of the world, but where proper extensions might change this. Our goal is to convince the skeptics that equilibrium models can be useful, but also to make traditional economists more aware of the limitations of equilib- rium models. We sketch some alternative approaches and discuss why they should play an important role in future research in economics. Key words: equilibrium, rational expectations, efficiency, arbitrage, bounded rationality, power laws, disequilibrium, zero intelligence, mar- ket ecology, agent based modeling arXiv:0803.2996v1 [q-fin.GN] 20 Mar 2008 JEL Classification: A10, A12, B0, B40, B50, C69, C9, D5, D1, G1, G10-G14. ∗Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Rd., Santa Fe NM 87501 and LUISS Guido Carli, Viale Pola 12, 00198, Roma, Italy yJames Tobin Professor of Economics, Yale University, New Haven CT, and Santa Fe Institute 1 Contents 1 Introduction 4 2 What is an equilibrium theory? 5 2.1 Existence of equilibrium and fixed points .
  • A Pure Theory of Aggregate Price Determination Masayuki Otaki

    A Pure Theory of Aggregate Price Determination Masayuki Otaki

    DBJ Discussion Paper Series, No.0906 A Pure Theory of Aggregate Price Determination Masayuki Otaki (Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo) June 2010 Discussion Papers are a series of preliminary materials in their draft form. No quotations, reproductions or circulations should be made without the written consent of the authors in order to protect the tentative characters of these papers. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in these papers are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Institute. A Pure Theory of Aggregate Price Determinationy Masayuki Otaki Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo 7-3-1 Hongo Bukyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. E-mail: [email protected] Phone: +81-3-5841-4952 Fax: +81-3-5841-4905 yThe author thanks Hirofumi Uzawa for his profound and fundamental lessons about “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.” He is also very grateful to Masaharu Hanazaki for his constructive discussions. Abstract This article considers aggregate price determination related to the neutrality of money. When the true cost of living can be defined as the function of prices in the overlapping generations (OLG) model, the marginal cost of a firm solely depends on the current and future prices. Further, the sequence of equilibrium price becomes independent of the quantity of money. Hence, money becomes non-neutral. However, when people hold the extraneous be- lief that prices proportionately increase with money, the belief also becomes self-fulfilling so far as the increment of money and the true cost of living are low enough to guarantee full employment.
  • An Equilibrium-Conserving Taxation Scheme for Income from Capital

    An Equilibrium-Conserving Taxation Scheme for Income from Capital

    Eur. Phys. J. B (2018) 91: 38 https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2018-80497-x THE EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL B Regular Article An equilibrium-conserving taxation scheme for income from capital Jacques Temperea Theory of Quantum and Complex Systems, Universiteit Antwerpen, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Antwerpen, Belgium Received 28 August 2017 / Received in final form 23 November 2017 Published online 14 February 2018 c The Author(s) 2018. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract. Under conditions of market equilibrium, the distribution of capital income follows a Pareto power law, with an exponent that characterizes the given equilibrium. Here, a simple taxation scheme is proposed such that the post-tax capital income distribution remains an equilibrium distribution, albeit with a different exponent. This taxation scheme is shown to be progressive, and its parameters can be simply derived from (i) the total amount of tax that will be levied, (ii) the threshold selected above which capital income will be taxed and (iii) the total amount of capital income. The latter can be obtained either by using Piketty's estimates of the capital/labor income ratio or by fitting the initial Pareto exponent. Both ways moreover provide a check on the amount of declared income from capital. 1 Introduction distribution of money over the agents involved in additive transactions follows a Boltzmann{Gibbs exponential dis- The distribution of income has been studied for a long tribution. Note that this is a strongly simplified model of time in the economic literature, and has more recently economic activity: it is clear that in reality global money become a topic of investigation for statistical physicists conservation is violated.
  • Values in Welfare Economics Antoinette Baujard

    Values in Welfare Economics Antoinette Baujard

    Values in Welfare economics Antoinette Baujard To cite this version: Antoinette Baujard. Values in Welfare economics. 2021. halshs-03244909 HAL Id: halshs-03244909 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-03244909 Preprint submitted on 1 Jun 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. WP 2112 – June 2021 Values in Welfare economics Antoinette Baujard Abstract: This chapter focuses on the inner rationale and consequences of four different archetypal positions regarding how ethical and political values are tackled in welfare economics. Welfare economics is standardly associated with the welfarist framework, for which social welfare is based on individual utility only. Beyond this, we distinguish the value-neutrality claim – for which ethical values should be and are out of the scope of welfare economics –, the value confinement ideal – for which ethical values are acceptable if they are minimal and consensual–, the transparency requirement – for which any ethical values may be acceptable in the welfare economics framework if explicit and formalized –, and the entanglement claim – which challenges the very possibility of demarcation between facts and values. Keywords: Welfare economics, facts and values, value judgement, welfarism, transparency, demarcation, normative and positive, neutrality JEL codes: B41, D60, D63 Values in Welfare economics1 By Antoinette Baujard2 Abstract.
  • Title MARX and PARETO on SCIENCE and HISTORY: a COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS Sub Title Author TARASCIO, VINCENT J

    Title MARX and PARETO on SCIENCE and HISTORY: a COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS Sub Title Author TARASCIO, VINCENT J

    Title MARX AND PARETO ON SCIENCE AND HISTORY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS Sub Title Author TARASCIO, VINCENT J. Publisher Keio Economic Society, Keio University Publication year 1972 Jtitle Keio economic studies Vol.9, No.2 (1972. ) ,p.23- 35 Abstract Notes Genre Journal Article URL http://koara.lib.keio.ac.jp/xoonips/modules/xoonips/detail.php?koara_id=AA00260492-19720002- 0023 Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) MARX AND PARETO ON SCIENCE AND HISTORY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS VINCENT J. TARASCIO INTRODUCTION This paper is essentially a comparative analysis of the methodologies of Marx and Pareto. I shall abstract from the doctrines and theories themselves and focus attention on their philosophical underpinnings. This approach re- cognizesthat there is a substructure underlying a theoretical system, a theory of theories, which is more general than the superstructure itself. Hence the basis for differentiating the works of both writers can be found not only in the superstructure, which is most accessible to inquiry, but also the substructure. My choice of Marx and Pareto is threefold. The economic-sociology of both writers is extremely complex and the existing literature devoted to the works of each writer is far from cohesive. Secondly, there are interesting parallels in the works of both writers when viewed from a methodological perspective, although their theoretical systems appear to be quite different. Thirdly, since Pareto was familiar with Marx's work and referred to it in his own writings, there is the additional opportunity to investigate the tatter's influence on the former. The first part of the paper deals with the problem of ethical neutrality in relation to the sociological theories of both writers.