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Ethics and Economics

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Abstract

In recent decades, an important corpus of theories in normative economics (social choice theory, the theory of fair allocation, and inequality and poverty measurement in particular) has developed in which formal analytical tools of economic theory are mobilized in order to relate basic principles of social ethics to precise criteria for the evaluation of social states of affairs. The efficacy of arguments based on veil-of-ignorance devices has been questioned and the scope of impossibility theorems has been circumscribed, leaving the stage to a variety of constructive proposals in several fields of application (voting, resource allocation, public policy, social indicators).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. http://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5

    Marc Fleurbaey

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  1. Marc Fleurbaey
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Fleurbaey, M. (2018). Ethics and Economics. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2559

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