Abstract
This paper presents a new criterion for social choice which goes beyond pure efficiency considerations. Members of society are required to evaluate public policies impartially by putting themselves in other people's shoes. The impartial preferences that are constructed by means of these thought-experiments are used to rule out some unfair Pareto efficient public policies from consideration. Implications of this “moral efficiency” criterion are illustrated using a pure exchange society, a simple production society with redistributive income taxation and a medical research society. The relationship between the moral efficiency criterion and alternative theories of social choice is also discussed.
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I would like to thank Ted Bergstrom, John Goddeeris, Warren Samuels and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. The suggestion of participants in seminars are given at Michigan State University, The University of Michigan, and the 1987 European Meetings of the Econometric Society (Copenhagen, Denmark) were also greatly appreciated. Of course, any errors that remain are my own responsibility.
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Segerstrom, P.S. Moral efficiency. Soc Choice Welfare 7, 109–129 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01560578
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01560578