Abstract
Can a tiny gain to sufficiently many well-off justify imposing a much larger sacrifice on the worst-off? We show that if one answers negatively to such a question and endorses replication invariance, one is forced to accept the maximin principle and give full priority to the worst-off even when a tiny gain to the worst-off imposes a substantial sacrifice on arbitrarily many well-off. If one dislikes this consequence, one faces a real dilemma in choosing between the tyranny of aggregation and the tyranny of non-aggregation.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 399-414 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Economic Theory |
Volume | 44 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2010 |
Externally published | Yes |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Economics and Econometrics
Keywords
- Aggregation
- Maximin
- Social choice
- Utilitarianism