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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter July 21, 2012

Treading a Fine Line: Characterisations and Impossibilities for Liberal Principles in Infinitely-Lived Societies

  • Michele Lombardi EMAIL logo and Roberto Veneziani

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.

Published Online: 2012-7-21

©2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston

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