Can a preference-based conception of welfare accommodate changes in people's preferences? I argue that the fact that people care about which preferences they have, and the fact that people can change their preferences about which preferences it is good for them to have, together undermine the...

The class of "rank-additive" (RA) axiologies includes rank-weighted utilitarian, generalized utilitarian, and rank-discounted generalized utilitarian rules; it is a flexible framework for population ethics. This paper axiomatically characterizes RA axiologies and studies their properties in two...

This paper reports on experiments regarding cheap talk games where senders attempt deception when their interests are not in conflict with those of the receiver. The amount of miscommunication is higher than in previous experimental findings on cheap talk games in situations where senders’ and...

The inclination of individuals to improve their performance when it lags behind that of others with whom they naturally compare themselves can be harnessed to optimize the individuals' effort in work and study. In a given set of individuals, we characterize each individual by his relative...

This paper addresses the self-selection of potential migrants. In particular, the study examines whether risk and time preferences explain a significant proportion in the movement heterogeneity of individuals. It is further intended to shed light on the role of social preferences (trust,...

The Gini coefficient features prominently in Amartya Sen’s 1973 and 1997 seminal work on income inequality and social welfare. We construct the Gini coefficient from social-psychological building blocks, reformulating it as a ratio between a measure of social stress and aggregate income. We...

The article is concerned with understanding the impact of social preferences and wealth inequality on aggregate economic outcomes. We investigate how different manifestations of societal other-regarding preferences affect labor relationships and incentive contracts at the microeconomic level and...