Inequality, Welfare and Monotonicity

23 Pages Posted: 21 Feb 2008

See all articles by Yoram Amiel

Yoram Amiel

Ruppin Academic Center - Department of Economics and Management

Frank Cowell

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD)

Date Written: April 1997

Abstract

We establish a general relationship between the standard form of the individualistic social-welfare function and the ?reduced-form? version that is expressed in terms of inequality and mean income. This shows the relationship between the property of monotonicity and the slope of the equity-efficiency trade-off. Particularly simple results are available for a large class of inequality measures that includes the Gini. These results do not require differentiability of the social welfare function.

Suggested Citation

Amiel, Yoram and Cowell, Frank A., Inequality, Welfare and Monotonicity (April 1997). LSE STICERD Research Paper No. 29, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1094774

Yoram Amiel (Contact Author)

Ruppin Academic Center - Department of Economics and Management ( email )

Emek Hefer 40250
Israel

Frank A. Cowell

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD) ( email )

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