A concern about low relative income, and the alignment of utilitarianism with egalitarianism

A utilitarian social planner who maximizes social welfare assigns the available income to those who are most efficient in converting income into utility. However, when individuals are concerned about their income falling behind the incomes of others, the optimal income distribution under utilitarianism is equality of incomes.     

On the investment implications of bankruptcy laws

Axiomatic analysis of bankruptcy problems reveals three major principles: (i) proportionality (PRO), (ii) equal awards (EA), and (iii) equal losses (EL). However, most real life bankruptcy procedures implement only the proportionality principle. We construct a noncooperative investment game to explore whether the explanation lies in the alternative implications of these principles on investment behavior. Our results are as follows (i) EL always induces higher total investment than PRO which in turn induces higher total investment than EA; (ii) PRO always induces higher egalitarian social welfare than both EA and EL in interior equilibria; (iii) PRO induces higher utilitarian social welfare than EL in interior equilibria but its relation to EA depends on the parameter values (however, a numerical analysis shows that on a large part of the parameter space, PRO induces higher utilitarian social welfare than EA).     

Comparisons of heterogeneous distributions and dominance criteria

We are interested in the comparisons of standard-of-living across societies when observations of both income and household structure are available. We generalise the approach of A.B. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon (1987) [3] to the case where the marginal distributions of needs can vary across the household populations under comparison. We assume that a sympathetic observer uses a utilitarian social welfare function in order to rank heterogeneous income distributions. Insofar as any individual can play the role of the observer, we take the unanimity point of view according to which the planner?s judgements have to comply with a certain number of basic normative principles. We impose increasingly restrictive conditions on the household?s utility function and we investigate their effects on the resulting rankings of the distributions. This leads us to propose four dominance criteria that can be used for providing an unambiguous ranking of income distributions for heterogeneous populations.     

效率与公平兼顾的最优所得税:理论框架及最优税率估计

最优所得税主要探讨税收如何兼顾公平与效率问题,以及给定公平偏好程度下,如何确定最优边际税率水平。即使在崇尚罗尔斯社会福利函数的社会里,政府同时兼顾再分配和财政收入目标的基础上,只要略加考虑税收对劳动供给的效应,哪怕是微弱的考虑和兼顾,最高边际税率都不会达到100%。而且,借鉴斯特恩最优线性所得税模型及美国个人所得税制度,估计我国现行个人所得税最高边际税率还可以适当降低到36%左右。     

DUAL‐INDEX MEASUREMENT OF INCOME INEQUALITY

This study introduces the concept of unequally distributed income and proposes a dual‐index measurement of income inequality that evaluates the magnitude and dispersion of unequally distributed income. We use the Rawlsian index as a magnitude index and employ current income inequality indices as a dispersion index. We describe the properties of the Rawlsian and dispersion indices, and apply these indices to real income data. Further, we show that the Gini dispersion index is a weighted average of Rawlsian indices for the sub‐distributions of the unequally distributed income distribution.     

A Dynamic Incentive‐Based Argument for Conditional Transfers*

We compare the long‐run effects of replacing unconditional transfers to the poor by transfers conditional on the education of children. Unlike Mirrlees’ income taxation model, the distribution of skill evolves endogenously. Human capital accumulation follows the Freeman–Ljungqvist–Mookherjee–Ray OLG model with missing capital markets and dynastic bequest motives. Conditional transfers (funded by taxes on earnings of the skilled) are shown to induce higher long‐run output per capita and (both utilitarian and Rawlsian) welfare, owing to their superior effect on skill accumulation incentives. The result is established both with two skill levels, and a continuum of occupations.     

A Class of Social Welfare Functions That Depend on Mean Income and Income Polarization

A well‐established strategy for evaluating alternative income distributions is based on the use of an abbreviated social welfare function that depends only on mean income and an inequality index. In keeping with this literature, we study the existence of social welfare functions that can be written as a trade‐off between efficiency and income polarization. This paper proposes a class of social welfare functions consistent with the Esteban and Ray, and Duclos, Esteban and Ray income polarization indices. For this result, we expand the domain for personal preferences to incorporate not only own income but also the well‐being of others. In addition, we link our proposal to the literature on relative satisfaction. The approach is illustrated by an empirical application using the CPS database for the United States in the period 1991–2010.     

Multinational public goods provision under multilateral income transfers and productivity differences

This article examines multinational public goods provision under multilateral income transfers and productivity differences across countries. Under a planner who uses linear approximation for utility maximization, we show that (1) a country is an income receiver if it has a higher productivity than the average in producing public goods, enabling it to provide more public goods; (2) the amount of transfers can be pinned down for all countries with an adjustment cost; (3) each country obtains an identical utility increment; and (4) the country with the lowest adjustment cost is the best candidate for the planner country. All results are derived based on well-known information regarding the cost of producing the public goods and income levels.     

Randomization, revelation, and redistribution in a Lerner world

Summary. If total social income is fixed and a social planner is uninformed of the utility representations of different individuals, then Lerner showed that the social optimum is to equally distribute income across individuals. We show that the planner by the use of randomization can in some circumstances induce individuals to reveal information about the curvature of their utility functions and then use the information to move away from equality on average. However, whether this is optimal depends in part on unobservable beliefs of the planner. These may be viewed as an aspect of the planner's ethical judgements or as something entirely arbitrary. Received: January 11, 2000; revised version: June 26, 2001     

On the equilibrium and welfare consequences of getting ahead of the Smiths

This paper provides an analysis of the social consequences of people seeking to get ahead of the Smiths. All individuals attempt to reach a higher rank than the Smiths, including the Smiths themselves. This attitude gives rise to an equilibrium in which all individuals have equal utilities but unequal (gross) incomes. Due to a rat‐race effect, individuals devote too much energy to climbing the social scale. However, laissez‐faire equilibrium is an equal‐utility constrained social optimum. Conversely, a utilitarian social planner would not choose utility equality. Unexpectedly, this social ambition theory fairly well accounts for empirical intermediate wage inequality.     

On the Pro-Social Security Rhetoric

We propose to reframe Social Security to offer a coherent anti-privatization rhetoric that has not been fully provided in the contemporary literature. The dissatisfaction that motivated this study centers on the observation that the prevalent anti-privatization rhetoric exposes the drawbacks of Private Retirement Accounts (PRAs), but this rhetoric itself doesn't satisfactorily explain why the current Social Security system is more desirable. In reframing Social Security, we will follow a two-stage strategy. First, we will articulate the desirability of Social Security grounded in the function it serves in a way PRAs are not suited for serving: being a social income insurance scheme whose provision inherently favors the least fortunate in a Rawlsian fashion. Second, we will concentrate how Social Security provides this non-market choice by drawing on the unique resources not entirely available to the market.     

A Closed-form Solution of the Uzawa-Lucas Model of Endogenous Growth

This paper presents a closed-form solution to the Uzawa-Lucas endogenous growth model with human and physical capital. Our result also applies if an external effect in the use of human capital in goods production occurs. Using the ``guess-and-verify' method, we determine the two value functions of the social planner in the centralized economy and of the representative agent in the decentralized case. We show that the introduction of income taxes on wages and of a subsidy on physical capital earnings helps the decentralized economy in reaching the social optimum, while keeping the policy maker's budget balanced. Finally, we derive the time-series implications of the model's solution.     

Age-related taxation of bequests in the presence of a dependency risk

This paper studies the properties of the optimal taxes on bequests when individuals differ in wage and in their risks of mortality and old-age dependance. Survival is positively correlated to income but dependency is negatively correlated with it. The government cannot distinguish between bequests motives, that is whether bequests resulted from precautionary reasons or from pure joy of giving reasons. Instead, it observes the timing of bequests and the health status at death. Under the utilitarian social welfare criterion, we show that bequests taxation results from a combination of equity, insurance, and public revenue motives. If redistribution concerns dominate insurance concerns, it is desirable to tax the most bequests of those individuals living long in good health and to tax the least bequests of those dying early. This is a direct consequence of the socio-demographic structure we assumed where richer agents live longer and in better health than poorer agents. To the opposite, if insurance concerns dominate redistributive concerns, early bequests should be the most taxed and, bequests under dependency the least taxed. Under the Rawlsian criterion, we find that early bequests should be the least taxed and bequests left by the healthy long-lived individuals should be the most taxed.     

Income Disparity, Inequity Aversion and the Design of the Healthcare System

An ex post social welfare function is used to evaluate alternative healthcare systems. If a society is averse to inequality and there is some income disparity, social welfare under private healthcare insurance is sometimes higher and sometimes lower than social welfare under public healthcare. However, a third system—public healthcare with the option to purchase supplemental healthcare insurance—is always socially preferred to private healthcare insurance. Moreover, it is either socially preferred to public healthcare or equivalent to it.     

A General Approach to Welfare Measurement through National Income Accounting*

A framework is developed for analyzing national income accounting using a revealed welfare approach that is sufficiently general to cover, both the standard discounted utilitarian and maximin criteria as special cases. We show that the basic welfare properties of comprehensive national income accounting, previously ascribed only to the discounted utilitarian case, extend to this more general framework. In particular, under a wider range of circumstances, it holds that real NNP growth (or, equivalently, a positive value of net investments) indicates welfare improvement. We illustrate the applicability of our approach in the Dasgupta–Heal–Solow model of capital accumulation and resource depletion.     

Survival,reproduction and congestion: the spaceship problem re-examined

This paper re-examines the spaceship problem, i.e. the design of the optimal population under a fixed living space, by focusing on the dilemma between adding new beings and extending the life of existing beings. For that purpose, we characterize, under time-additive individual welfare depending negatively on population density, the preference ordering of a utilitarian social planner over lifetime-equal histories, i.e. histories with demographic conditions yielding an equal finite number of life-periods (imposed by resources constraints). The analysis of the spaceship problem contradicts widespread beliefs about the populationism of Classical Utilitarianism and the antipopulationism of Average Utilitarianism. We also study the invariance property exhibited by various utilitarian rankings to the total space available and to individual preferences. Finally, we compare histories for a spaceship with a stationary population, and try to accomodate intuitions about posterity and renewal of populations.     

土地政策调整对经济发展和社会福利的影响

构建了一个土地对社会福利影响的分析模型,并用天津市的数据进行检验。研究结果表明：（1）政府对于土地供应量的控制减少了均衡资本量;（2）严格的土地政策会使单位资本产生的福利量减少;（3）土地政策的适时调整能使经济发展沿着社会福利最大化的路径发展。因此,土地政策的制定应该以社会需求为导向,并通过适时调整以实现社会福利最大化。     

Social welfare,parental altruism,and inequality

When individuals have heterogeneous and persistent degrees of one‐sided parental altruism, inequality may grow large and standard social welfare criteria are problematic. If the planner selects Pareto optimal allocations based on some target level of consumption inequality, the solution implies an aggregation of individuals' utilities that is strongly asymmetric and biased toward the less altruistic dynasties. If instead, the planner uses a symmetric utilitarian criterion, the solution is likely to generate a large degree of long‐run inequality (even relative to laissez‐faire competitive equilibria), it can only be decentralized with negative estate taxes or lower bounds on bequests, and it is time‐inconsistent.     

收入分布、破坏性创新与社会福利

通过构建破坏性创新企业与在位企业进行市场竞争的双寡头博弈模型,分析在具有不同收入分布特征市场中破坏性创新企业的市场绩效及社会福利。研究发现,在收入差距较大的市场中,破坏性创新企业获得更大的市场份额和利润,社会福利相对较小;相反,在收入水平较高且分布趋向同质的市场中,在位企业获得更大的市场份额和利润,并且,破坏性创新厂商的利润随着收入水平的提高而降低。同时,随着收入水平的提高,两企业的产品质量不断提高,但质量差距不断扩大,社会总福利也随之增加。最后,进一步阐释了破坏性创新更多地发生于贫富差距较大的新兴市场的微观机制,为企业根据不同市场的收入分布特征选择竞争战略提供理论依据,为相关国家基于收入分布特点制定限制或支持破坏性创新创业政策提供理论参考。     

Hicks's Valuation of Social income: an appraisal *

This paper attempts to reconstruct and assess the intellectual itinerary of Hicks on the valuation of social income. His 1958 and 1981 papers on that topic have been wholly ignored in the economic literature. In both of them differentmeasures of real income are provided. These show to what extenteach one of them can be relied upon. Our assessment argues that it is impossible to measure social income independentlyof the reasons for which that measure is required and that any valuation cannot ultimatelybe made independently of political and ethical considerations.