Collected Papers of Kenneth J. Arrow, Volume 1: Social Choice and Justice

by Kenneth J. Arrow

Overview

Unlike the papers of some other great economists, those of Kenneth Arrow are being read and studied today with even greater care and attention than when they first appeared in the journals. The publication of his collected papers will therefore be welcomed by economists and other social scientists and in particular by graduate students, who can draw from them the deep knowledge and the discernment in selection of scientific problems that only a master can offer. The author has added headnotes to certain well-known papers, describing how he came to write them.

In this first volume, Arrow takes up the basic question of whether collective choices can be made in such a way as to reflect individual preferences. The seminal 1950 paper that opens the volume shows that given certain reasonable conditions that social choices must satisfy to reflect individual preferences, it is impossible to make a choice among all sets of alternatives without violating some of the conditions. The subsequent papers extend, deepen, and clarify these results and examine the concept of justice, both in the abstract and in economic models. The volume also contains searching critiques of the theories of justice of John Rawls and Robert Nozick.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674137608
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/09/1984
Series:	Collected Papers of Kenneth J. Arrow Series , #1
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

A past president of the American Economic Association, Kenneth J. Arrow was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1972.

Table of Contents

1. A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare

2. Little's Critique of Welfare Economics

3. The Principle of Rationality in Collective Decisions

4. Values and Collective Decision Making

5. The Place of Moral Obligation in Preference Systems

6. Tullock and an Existence Theorem

7. A Utilitarian Approach to the Concept of Equality in Public Expenditures

8. Some Ordinalist-Utilitarian Notes on Rawis's Theory of Justice

9. Formal Theories of Social Welfare

10. Rawls's Principle of Just Saving

11. Extended Sympathy and the Possibility of Social Choice

12. Current Developments in the Theory of Social Choice

13. Nozick's Entitlement Theory of Justice

14. The Trade-off between Growth and Equity

15. Optimal and Voluntary Income Distribution

Index