Opportunity sets and individual well-being

Abstract.

 An opportunity set ranking rule assigns an ordering of opportunity sets to each individual utility function (defined on the universal set of alternatives) within the domain of this rule. Using an axiomatic approach, this paper characterizes a general class of opportunity set ranking rules which are based on the utilities associated with the elements of an opportunity set. It is argued that the addition of an alternative to a given opportunity set is not necessarily desirable in terms of overall well-being, and this position is reflected in replacing a commonly used monotonicity axiom with an alternative condition.