This paper is an exploratory and tentative study of the specific differentia of medical care as the object of normativeconomics. It is contended here, on the basis of comparison of obvious characteristics of the medical-care industry with the norms of welfare economics,

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Welfare economics provides the basis for judging the achievements of markets and policy makers in allocating resources. Its most powerful conceptual tool is the utility possibility frontier. This defines the set of utility allocations that can be achieved in a society subject to the constraints

This paper contains the chapters on welfare economics, morality, and the law from a general, forthcoming book, Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law (Harvard University Press, 2003). I begin in chapter 26 with a discussion of the normative foundations of economic analysis, namely, the subject

Abstract: Murray Rothbard offered a twofold defense of the unhampered market economy. He argued that it upholds natural rights and promotes the life and flour-ishing of persons more fully than any other social system. His welfare economics was not a defense of the unhampered market economy, but a

This is a preliminary draft of Chapter 1 of a manuscript, Welfare Economics and Social Choice, being prepared by Bhaskar Dutta and Prasanta K. Pattanaik. Your comments are most welcome. However, please do not cite this draft without the permission of at least one of the authors.

Behavioral economics has shaken the view that individuals have well-de…ned, consistent and stable preferences. This raises a challenge for welfare economics, which takes as a key postulate that individual preferences should be respected. This paper scrutinizes the challenge and argues, in agreement

We address a puzzle in welfare economics- the possibility that rational people may be simultaneously against two apparently conflicting forms of “tyranny”. In fact the two types of tyranny can be reconciled but at the possible cost of conflict with other standard welfare principles. We examine

three existing theories within welfare economics—average utilitarianism, relativist utilitarianism, and critical-level utilitarianism—and considers whether they can satisfactorily accommodate the intuition that creating people is neutral. 1. The problem MANY of the actions we take now will affect

The complicated analyses which economists endeavour to carry through are not mere gymnastic. They are instruments for the bettering of human life. The misery and squalor that surround us, the injurious luxury of some wealthy families, the terrible uncertainty overshadowing many families of the poor—these are evils too plain to be ignored. By the knowledge that our science seeks it is possible that they may be restrained. Out of the darkness light! To search for it is the task, to find it perhaps the prize, which the “dismal science of Political Economy ” offers to those who face its discipline. — Arthur Cecil Pigou*** 1.