The Unsolvable Dilemma of a Paretian Policymaker
- Author(s):
- Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci, Nuno Garoupa
- Posted:
- 2004
- Law & Economics #:
- 04-52
- Availability:
- Full text (most recent) on SSRN
ABSTRACT:
In this paper, we argue that social decision-making is subject to a fundamental conflict between consistency and completeness. We show that a consistent welfarist method of policy assessment, that is, one that never violates the Pareto principle, may be incomplete in the sense of being incapable of providing a solution to important social welfare problems.