Fair Utilitarianism

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fleurbaey, Marc; Zuber, Stephane
• 署名单位: Paris School of Economics; Universite PSL; Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS); Paris School of Economics
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20170234
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 370-401
• 关键词: risk-aversion; Interpersonal comparisons; Welfare economics; cardinal welfare; marginal utility; HEALTH; Impossibility; impartiality; preferences; insurance

摘要

Utilitarianism plays a central role in economics, but there is a gap between theory, where utilitarianism is dominant, and applications, where monetary criteria are often used. For applications, a key difficulty is to define how utilities should be measured and compared. Drawing on Harsanyi's (1955) approach, we introduce a new normalization of utilities ensuring that: (i) a transfer from a rich population to a poor population is welfare enhancing, and (ii) populations with more risk-averse people have lower welfare. We study some implications of this fair utilitarianism for risk sharing, collective risk aversion, and the design of health policy.