A theorem on utilitarian redistribution

A theorem is presented which characterizes regions where the marginal utilities of most goods decrease with increasing utility, given non-inferiority of one good and a strictly concave utility function. An analysis of the optimum utilitarian tax rests on this result.I am grateful to Josef Falkinger and Bengt-Arne Wickström for helpful comments. A previous version of the paper was written when the author visited Oxford University, Wolfson College.     

John Harsanyi's contributions to social choice and welfare economics

This article provides an overview of John Harsanyi's contributions to Social Choice and Welfare Economics.This article is a slightly expanded version of remarks I made on July 9, 1994 when I introduced John Harsanyi's address (which follows in this same issue) to the meetings of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare in Rochester, New York. In preparing my remarks for publication I have tried to keep the conversational tone of the original presentation but have added references for the reader's convenience. At the time of the meetings I had not anticipated publishing my introduction. When a few months later Maurice Salles asked if I would write up my remarks, I had to do so from memory, not having kept the notes I used to make my presentation. Subsequent to the Rochester meetings, Professor Harsanyi was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and I am pleased to add my congratulations to him for this honour in the form of this introduction to his research in Social Choice and Welfare Economics. Research support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is gratefully acknowledged.     

Harsanyi's impartial observer theorem with a restricted domain

In this paper we extend Harsanyi's impartial observer theorem by showing that the large domain of social lotteries can be significantly restricted – it is sufficient that the domain consists only of constant extended lotteries. Received: 27 December 2000/Accepted: 12 September 2001 We thank Simon Grant, Edi Karni, Atsushi Kajii, Ben Polak, Yemima Thompson and John Weymark for their comments and the Israel Institute of Business Research for financial support.     

Further remarks on Harsanyi's social aggregation theorem and the weak Pareto principle

Weak Pareto versions of Harsanyi's Social Aggregation Theorem are established for mixture-preserving utility functions defined on a mixture set of alternatives.     

More on independent decisiveness and Arrow's theorem

Denicolò [2, Theorem 1] strengthens Arrow's [1, p. 97] theorem by replacing the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) condition by a strictly weaker one, relational independent decisiveness (RID). It is shown here that RID can be still substantially weakened. Yet, the new condition is equivalent to RID under the weak Pareto principle P and unrestricted domain U. In fact, any condition that can be put in place of IIA in Arrow's theorem must imply RID in the presence of P and U. Incidentally, it is argued that Denicolò's proof of his Theorem 1 contains an imprecision. Received: 7 March 2000/Accepted: 11 December 2000     

An extended formulation of Arrow's theorem for k-social welfare functions

Past studies in social choice theory are generally based on the assumption that any two alternatives must be incompatible. We are concerned with the concept, k-social choice based on the assumption that just k alternatives out of p (1kp–1) are compatible. The purpose of this paper is to show an extended formulation of Arrow's theorem for k-social welfare functions.     

Hansson’s theorem for generalized social welfare functions: an extension

 Hansson (1969) sets forth four conditions satisfied by no generalized social welfare function (GSWF), a mapping from profiles of individual preferences to arbitrary social preference relations. Though transitivity is not imposed on social preferences, one of Hansson’s conditions requires that socially maximal alternatives always exist. Of course, this condition is not satisfied by the majority GSWF. We prove a generalization of Hansson’s theorem that requires the existence of maximal alternatives only in very special cases. Our result applies to the majority GSWF and a large class of other GSWFs that sometimes produce no maximal alternatives. Received: 10 July 1995/Accepted: 4 March 1996     

Temporary employment experiences of women on welfare

Females with recent participation in public welfare are a disproportionate and growing share of temporary help services firm employees. Research documenting low earnings, frequent job transitions, and low benefit rates among temporary workers has raised concerns that welfare recipients taking these jobs might have poorer labor market outcomes than those entering permanent positions. My findings show that a majority of welfare recipients working in temporary jobs were satisfied with their pay and working conditions and did not earn much less than those in other jobs. They did report, however, high levels of dissatisfaction with the lack of employment benefits received, and their annual earnings were still very low, reflecting chronic job instability that is endemic to the welfare population.     

城市化经济定理初探

一、城市化经济的内涵城市化经济不同于城市经济,它有两种内涵。从狭义来看,城市化经济是城市空间本身各种要素相互作用而产生的一种特殊的经济效应,即单个企业或行业的生产成本随着城市地区总产出的上升而下降的现象,它表现为整个城市范围内所有行业之间的整体的集聚经济,这种     

More on preference and freedom

The paper seeks to formalize the notion of effective freedom or the freedom to realize meaningful choices. The definition of meaningful choice used in this paper is based on the preference orderings that a reasonable person may have. I argue that only alternatives that can be selected by a reasonable person from the set of all possible alternatives provide a meaningful choice. I discuss this approach and provide an axiomatization of the cardinality rule and two lexicographic versions of this rule in this context. Received: 24 September 1996/Accepted: 26 January 2000     

Child welfare agency climate influence on worker commitment

This research focuses on understanding the relationship of organizational climate to commitment for child welfare workers in private, non-governmental organizations. Commitment is measured as a latent construct of agency investment derived from Landsman's study (2001). Agency investment includes measures of workers' time, cost, and emotional difficulty for changing their line of work. Organizational climate is embedded in Parker et al. (2003) modification of James and colleagues' theory of primary domains of work environment perceptions. Parker's Psychological Climate survey measured organizational climate. Four hundred forty-one workers in three not-for-profit agencies under contract with the public child welfare system were sampled. Autonomy, Challenge and Innovation were significantly associated with agency investment. This indicates that worker perceptions of having job autonomy, the job being challenging, and the organization as innovative predict greater job commitment.     

Concluding commentary: Varied perspectives on child welfare

A fuller understanding of the child welfare system requires its examination from multiple perspectives, as is demonstrated in this special issue. Until recently, the perspectives of mothers involved in child protection and whose children had been placed in foster care had been particularly neglected. This special issue contributes to progress in the research literature in this regard. Questions are raised about the nature of the interactions between the mothers and the child protection system, and the compatibility of those interactions with effective service delivery. This commentary concludes with the suggestions that we seek better ways to structure the child welfare system, and that a social movement composed of parents involved in that system, children in foster care, caseworkers and administrators, and researchers, all united as allies, might be necessary to effect such change.     

More on the measurement of inequality

The article, written in 1973, examines what comparisons of income distributions can be made when Lorenz curves cross, employing the concept of third-order stochastic dominance. “More on the measurement of inequality” as reviewed by Prof. P. Lambert will appear in the Rediscovered Classics section, along with the editorial.     

Little and Bergson on Arrow's concept of social welfare

The paper revisits a debate regarding Arrow's concept of social welfare that took place shortly after the publication of his book, Social Choice and Individual Values. It is argued that several points made by Little and Bergson in that debate nearly fifty years ago may still be helpful in understanding Arrow's contribution. The paper interprets the aspect of social welfare emphasized by Little and Bergson and the aspect emphasized by Arrow in terms of two distinct phases of decision-making in a liberal democracy.     

关于Steiner-Lehmes定理的4个推广猜想的研究

著名的steiner-Lehmes定理旨在一定条件下判断1个三角形是否为等腰三角形,而王彦海把题设条件替换成了各种形式,并提出了9个猜想.用吴方法和MMP软件证明了其中的3个,提出并解决1个新的猜想.余下的几个猜想由于题设条件转化成代数条件的多项式次数较高,MMP软件运行时间太长而未能得到期望的结果.