I survey the results of empirical research, showing that the opinions about distributive justice of the population at large are in sharp conflict with the assumptions of traditional welfare economics. I focus on the results concerning welfarism and concerning the Pigou-Dalton transfer criterion....

Lack of information about technology and prices often hampers the empirical assessment of the validity of the profit maximization hypothesis. We show that the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology comprises natural tools for dealing with such incomplete information. In...

The axiomatic literature on technical efficiency measurement has drawn attention to the indication problem of the Debreu-Farrell (DF) measure. We follow a shadow price approach to preserve the DF benchmark while reconciling it with the Koopmans efficiency characterization. First, we define a set...

To take into account heterogeneity in a social welfare function, Ebert (1997) and Shorrocks (1995) show that the only consistent way of welfare measurement consists of either constructing an artificial distribution in which each household is weighted by the number of equivalent individuals, or...

We propose a straightforward dominance procedure for comparing social welfare orderings (SWOs) with respect to the degree of inequality aversion they express. Three versions of the procedure are considered, each of which uses a different underlying criterion of inequality comparisons: (i) a...

We analyze the relationship between institutional infrastructure (capturing political stability, quality of government and social infrastructure) and overall country productivity for a sample of 57 (OECD and non-OECD) countries. Specifically, we compare empirical results for alternative...

The neo-institutional approach to economic phenomena has forwarded the institutional framework within a society as a fundamental determinant of economic performance. Cultural characteristics, also referred to as "societal capital", have gained specific attention in this respect. Basically, a...

Besley (1988) is one of the few exceptional articles containing non-welfarist optimal tax devices. Feehan(1990) reports an error in his first-best rules. The present note criticizes the fundamentals of Besley's second-best rules. These rules optimize the welfare or well-being of phantom agents...

This paper presents an ordered logit approach to model the optimal timing of buying a house during the life cycle. The model is applied to three recent Belgian household budget surveys. We find that households postpone homeownership or choose to be lifelong tenant due to an increase of the...

Composite indicators are regularly used for benchmarking countries’ performance, but equally often stir controversies about the unavoidable subjectivity that is connected with their construction. Data Envelopment Analysis helps to overcome some key limitations, viz., the undesirable dependence...