Fair Division and Collective Welfare by Herve Moulin

Fair Division and Collective Welfare by Herve Moulin

The concept of fair division is as old as civil society itself. Aristotle's equal treatment of equals was the first step toward a formal definition of distributive fairness. The concept of collective welfare, more than two centuries old, is a pillar of modern economic analysis. Reflecting fifty years of research, this book examines the contribution of modern microeconomic thinking to distributive justice. Taking the modern axiomatic approach, it compares normative arguments of distributive justice and their relation to efficiency and collective welfare.

The book begins with the epistemological status of the axiomatic approach and the four classic principles of distributive justice: compensation, reward, exogenous rights, and fitness. It then presents the simple ideas of equal gains, equal losses, and proportional gains and losses. The book discusses three cardinal interpretations of collective welfare: Bentham's utilitarian proposal to maximize the sum of individual utilities, the Nash product, and the egalitarian leximin ordering. It also discusses the two main ordinal definitions of collective welfare: the majority relation and the Borda scoring method.

The Shapley value is the single most important contribution of game theory to distributive justice. A formula to divide jointly produced costs or benefits fairly, it is especially useful when the pattern of externalities renders useless the simple ideas of equality and proportionality. The book ends with two versatile methods for dividing commodities efficiently and fairly when only ordinal preferences matter: competitive equilibrium with equal incomes and egalitarian equivalence. The book contains a wealth of empirical examples and exercises.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780262633116
ISBN 10	0262633116
Title	Fair Division and Collective Welfare
Author	Herve Moulin
Series	The Mit Press
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	MIT Press Ltd
Year published	2004-08-20
Number of pages	296
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.