Conversations on Social Choice and Welfare Theory

Description

This volume presents interviews that have been conducted from the 1980s to the present with important scholars of social choice and welfare theory. Starting with a brief history of social choice and welfare theory written by the book editors, it features 15 conversations with four Nobel Laureates and other key scholars in the discipline. The volume is divided into two parts. The first part presents four conversations with the founding fathers of modern social choice and welfare theory: Kenneth Arrow, John Harsanyi, Paul Samuelson, and Amartya Sen. The second part includes conversations with scholars who made important contributions to the discipline from the early 1970s onwards. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of economics, and the history of social choice and welfare theory in particular. Contents Contributors A Brief History of Social Choice and Welfare Theory 1 History of Social Choice and Welfare Theory: A Brief Sketch 1.1 Precursors 1.2 First Foundation 1.3 Second Foundation 1.4 Social Choice Theory Around 1970 1.5 The Recent (Say, Approximately Post 1975) Development of Social Choice and Welfare Theory 2 The Conversations References Foundations Kenneth J. Arrow References John C. Harsanyi References Paul A. Samuelson 1 Introduction 2 Interview 2.1 On Pigou’s “Old” Welfare Economics 2.2 On Robbins’s Criticism of the “Old” Welfare Economics 2.3 On the Advent of the “New” Welfare Economics 2.4 On the Concept of the Bergson-Samuelson Social Welfare Function 2.5 On the Concept of the Arrow Social Welfare Function 2.6 On the Single-Profile Impossibility Theorems 2.7 On Consequentialism and Welfarism 2.8 On the Resurgence of Consumers’ Surplus 3 Welfare Economics and Economic Policy 4 Concluding Remarks References Amartya Sen References Developments Salvador Barberà References John Broome 1 Your Intellectual Journey 2 Utilitarianism 3 Bernouilli’s Hypothesis and the Representation of Betterness 4 Interpersonal Addition 5 Personal Goodness and Interpersonal Comparisons 6 The Intuition of Neutrality Gabrielle Demange 1 Introduction and Background 2 Articles 3 Recent Development and Future Avenues for Research References David Donaldson References Peter Fishburn Allan Gibbard References Peter J. Hammond References Prasanta K. Pattanaik John E. Roemer 1 On Being an Economist 2 On Economics Bibliography William Thomson References John A. Weymark References