UCL - Ethics and Social Choice

[ECON2069]

[15h] 5 credits

This two-yearly course is taught in 2008-2009, 2010-2011,...

Teacher(s): Claude d'Aspremont-Lynden

Language: English

Level: Second

Aims
Main themes
Content and teaching methods
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Aims

The objective of the course is to provide a basic training in the part of social choice theory which is most rele-vant for social ethics, in general, and for welfare economics, more specifically.

Main themes

The course should study social ethics and welfare economics issues using the axiomatic tools of Social Choice Theory. Both welfarist and non-welfarist approaches should be presented. The static and the intertemporal so-cial choice frameworks should be introduced and equity conditions analyzed in both frameworks.

Content and teaching methods

First, the welfarist approach to social choice will be characterized, and its link to the "New Welfare Economics" emphasized. Arrow's celebrated impossibility theorem will be presented and discussed. Then, the main welfarist theories (starting with the utilitarian doctrine), and some non-welfarist theories (starting with Rawls's theory of justice) will be studied formally. Intergenerational equity will be examined. Application to the measurement of inequality will be developed. Some links will be established with recent developments in contemporary ethics and political philosophy

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Basic notions of welfare economics

A written examination is required at the end.
The basic reference is Mongin, P. and d'Aspremont, C. (1998), "Utility Theory and Ethics," in: Bar-bera S., Hammond P. and Seidl C. (eds.), Handbook of Utility Theory, vol. 1: Principles, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 371-401.