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A cardinal social welfare function is a function that takes as input numeric representations of individual utilities (also known as cardinal utility), and returns as output a numeric representation of the collective welfare. The underlying assumption is that individuals utilities can be put on a common scale and compared.
Often, we need a function that describes the happiness of an entire society. Such a function is called a social welfare function, and it is usually an aggregate function of two or more utility functions. If the individual utility functions are additive, then the following is true for the aggregate functions:
An additive agent has a utility function that is an additive set function: for every additive agent i and item j, there is a value ,, such that () =, for every set Z of items. When all agents are additive, welfare maximization can be done by a simple polynomial-time algorithm: give each item j to an agent for whom v i , j {\displaystyle v_{i,j ...
Social choice theory is a branch of welfare economics that extends the theory of rational choice to collective decision-making. [1] Social choice studies the behavior of different mathematical procedures ( social welfare functions ) used to combine individual preferences into a coherent whole.
Welfare economics is a field of economics that applies microeconomic techniques to evaluate the overall well-being (welfare) of a society. [1]The principles of welfare economics are often used to inform public economics, which focuses on the ways in which government intervention can improve social welfare.
There are two fundamental theorems of welfare economics. The first states that in economic equilibrium , a set of complete markets , with complete information , and in perfect competition , will be Pareto optimal (in the sense that no further exchange would make one person better off without making another worse off).
The Pigou–Dalton principle (PDP) is a principle in welfare economics, particularly in cardinal welfarism. Named after Arthur Cecil Pigou and Hugh Dalton, it is a condition on social welfare functions. It says that, all other things being equal, a social welfare function should prefer allocations that are more equitable. In other words, a ...
Welfare economics is a branch of economics that uses microeconomic techniques to evaluate well-being (welfare) at the aggregate (economy-wide) level. A typical methodology begins with the derivation (or assumption) of a social welfare function, which can then be used to rank economically feasible allocations of resources in terms of the social welfare they entail.