A Contribution to the Theory of Welfare Comparisons

Abstract

Using only information based on current directly-observable market behavior, the paper shows how to make rigorous dynamic welfare comparisons among economies or economic situations having arbitrarily-different endowments and technologies, but sharing a common dynamic preference ordering. The correct answers to seemingly complicated questions, which intrinsically involve comparing wealth-like measures of dynamic well-being, can be translated isomorphically into a simple-minded story told in the familiar language of old-fashioned static consumer-welfare theory.