Optimal Tax/Subsidy Intervention in Commodity Markets When the Groups of Interest Are Weighted Unequally.

Models of optimal intervention in commodity markets often presume the existence of a policymaker who explicitly maximizes a social welfare function consisting of the weighted sum of welfare of different groups. This study identifies conditions regarding the weights attached to the groups of interest as well as the underlying technologies and preferences under which those welfare functions are consistent with the optimization hypothesis. Copyright 1993 by Oxford University Press.