Abstract
The main purpose of using a social welfare function is to evaluate the way in which economic resources are allocated in identifying which policies work and which ones do not. Policies have heterogeneous effects on individuals. That is, from a public policy perspective, some individuals might lose while others might gain from a policy. In any evaluation, normative judgments cannot be avoided and social welfare functions explicitly specify normative judgments by assigning weights to different individuals.
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Kakwani, N., Son, H.H. (2016). Applied Social Welfare Functions. In: Social Welfare Functions and Development. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58325-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58325-3_2
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