The envy test concept is an all-or-nothing notion, and this is problematic when there is no achievable envy-free option. The idea of ranking the ‘unfair’ social states on the basis of how much envy they contain goes back at least to Feldman and Kirman (1974) and Varian (1976), but it is in Suzumura (1981a, b, 1983) that one finds a first systematic study of this issue. More recent contributions to this line of research include Chauduri (1986), Diamantaras and Thomson (1990), Tadenuma (2002), and Tadenuma and Thomson (1995).
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Fleurbaey, M. (2008). To Envy or To Be Envied? Refinements of the Envy Test for the Compensation Problem. In: Pattanaik, P.K., Tadenuma, K., Xu, Y., Yoshihara, N. (eds) Rational Choice and Social Welfare. Studies in Choice and Welfare. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79832-3_6
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