This dissertation consists of four essays on welfare economics. The first essay investigates Arrow's general possibility theorem by introducing a particular comparability of individual utilities. The well-known voting procedure, the median voter method, is characterized by using this particular comparability of individual utilities. The second essay investigates Arrow's problem by going to another direction, viz., without introducing any concept of individual or social preference. Instead, we examine the problem of aggregating individual choices. Several plausible axioms are introduced for this exercise, and approval voting and the plurality rule are characterized. The third essay examines Sen's impossibility theorem. We prove that the conflict roots on the informational contents of two different value judgments about social welfare. The fourth essay examines the problem of measuring the extent of freedom of choices. Depending on the valuation system, a concept of hierarchical importance of freedom is introduced. Then we propose several axioms for measuring the extent of freedom of choice in the framework and two lexicographic counting rules and a dominance relation rule are characterized / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_23294 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Contributors | Xu, Yongsheng (Author), Baigent, Nick (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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