Christian Seidl

Handbook of utility theory

Preface. 14. Alternatives to Expected Utility: Foundations R. Sugden. 15. Alternatives to Expected Utility: Formal Theories U. Schmidt. 16. State-Dependent Utility and Decision Theory J.H. Dreze, A. Rustichini. 17. Ranking Sets of Objects S. Barbera, W. Bossert, P.K. Pattanaik. 18. Expected Utility in Non-Cooperative Game Theory P.J. Hammond. 19. Utility Theories in Cooperative Games M. Kaneko, M.H. Wooders. 20. Utility in Social Choice W. Bossert, J.A. Weymark. 21. Interpersonally Comparable Utility M. Fleurbaey, P.J. Hammond. Subject Index. Name Index.

Poverty Measurement: A Survey

Though poverty is one of the most challenging problems from which mankind has ever suffered to my knowledge only one economist’s Nobel Lecture has dealt with this provocative issue. It began with the promising statement: “Most of the people in the world are poor, so if we knew the economics of being poor we would know much of the economics that really matters.”1 But then the curious reader will be rather disappointed discovering that this Nobel Lecture is mostly devoted to agricultural economics.

ACCEPTANCE OF DISTRIBUTIONAL AXIOMS: EXPERIMENTAL FINDINGS*

This paper is an empirical study of the acceptability of distributional axioms. Data from five German universities were used to analyze attitudes with respect to the anonymity postulate, relative and absolute income inequality aversion (tests of the acceptability of scale and translation invariance), specific transfer affinities, and replication aversion (the population principle). This paper represents an innovation in the analysis of perception of distributional equality in that it offers more comprehensive and conclusive results as to the statistical consistency of test responses, introduces a test of the anonymity postulate and, finally, uses combinations of some of these responses to express more complex perceptions of income distributional inequalities in the form of inequality attitudes.

How sensible is the Leyden individual welfare function of income

Abstract The Leyden economists contend that the individual welfare function (utility function) of income is best represented by a lognormal distribution function. They have presented ample data to document the good empirical fit of the lognormal hypothesis. This paper presents, reexamines, and criticises the theoretical foundations of the lognormal hypothesis and finds that this edifice is not built on solid ground, neither from the point of view of economic theory, nor of experimental psychology. Moreover, it investigates the paradox of the good empirical fit of the lognormal hypothesis in spite of its theoretical deficiencies. It is shown that the lognormal hypothesis is observationally equivalent to the logarithmic (power) welfare function when respondents evaluate welfare according to a normal (lognormal) distribution function.

Friedman, Harsanyi, Rawls, Boulding - or somebody else? An experimental investigation of distributive justice

This paper investigates distributive justice using a fourfold experimental design: The ignorance and the risk scenarios are combined with the self-concern and the umpire modes. We study behavioral switches between self-concern and umpire mode and investigate the goodness of ten standards of behavior. In the ignorance scenario, subjects became, on average, less inequality-averse as umpires. A within-subjects analysis shows that about one half became less inequality-averse, one quarter became more inequality-averse and one quarter remained unchanged as umpires. In the risk scenario, subjects became on average more inequality-averse in their umpire roles. A within-subjects analysis shows that about half became more inequality-averse, one quarter became less inequality-averse, and one quarter remained unchanged as umpires. As to the standards of behavior, several prominent ones (leximin, leximax, Gini, Cobb-Douglas) were not supported, while expected utility, Boulding’s hypothesis, the entropy social welfare function, and randomization preference enjoyed impressive acceptance. For the risk scenario, the tax standard of behavior joins the favorite standards of behavior.

Taxpayers’ attitudes, behavior, and perception of fairness

This paper investigates taxpayers’ attitudes, behavior, and perception of fairness with respect to taxation using data drawn from a survey among German employees. It is shown that there is a large gulf between subjects’ attitudes towards taxation and their behavior. Although most subjects profess that their own taxation is either too high or far too high, up to 60 percent of them judge tax burdens to be fair which exceed actual taxation by far. Moreover, the great majority of those subjects opting for a proportional tax scale implicitly state tax burdens which are consistent with a progressive tax scale only. Finally, we find overwhelming rejection of one of the core elements of the German income tax system, namely spouse tax splitting.

The desire for a son is the father of many daughters

This paper investigates the impact of preferences for male offspring to female offspring upon the sex ratio of the population. Asymmetric procreation behaviour of this kind is modelled by assuming that a females procreation ceases only after at least one son or n daughters are born. It is shown that such asymmetric procreation behaviour has no effect on the sex ratio of the society, but influences rather the growth rate of the population. Finally, problems concerning the interrelationship between the sex ratio, the pattern of procreation, and the marriage régime in stationary populations are investigated.

Joseph Alois Schumpeter: Character, Life and Particulars of his Graz Period

Samuelson has characterized his beloved teacher Schumpeter as a great showman1. Upon noticing serious discrepancies between Schumpeter’s biographies2 and documents I found in or received from various Viennese, Graz, and Czech archives, I finally remembered this dictum. First I had, of course, conjectured some sloppiness on the part of the biographers, but as they were accurate on all events they had witnessed themselves, I suspected that the obvious discrepancies must be traced to Schumpeter himself. This conjecture was later confirmed to me by Professors Loring Allen and Friedrich A. von Hayek3.

Eine umfassende Steuer- und Abgabenreform für Deutschland: Eine Flat Tax mit Sozialkomponente

1 Der Reformbedarf der deutschen Volkswirtschaft . . . . . . . . . 178 2 Das Reformkonzept im Uberblick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 3 Die Komponenten des Reformkonzeptes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 3.1 Die proportionale Einkommensteuer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 3.2 Die Sozialkomponente N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 3.3 Die Administration des Reformkonzepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 3.4 Abschottung gegen eine soziale Hangematte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 4 Flankierung des Reformkonzepts durch eine wachstumsorientierte Wirtschaftspolitik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 4.1 Senkung der Staatsausgaben . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 4.2 Privatisierung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 4.3 Humankapital und Bildungspolitik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 4.4 Beseitigung der Behinderung der Kapitalstrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 5 Ubergangsprobleme: Die Kosten des Vertrauensschutzes . . 209 6 Anhang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Literaturverzeichnis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

MEASUREMENT OF TAX PROGRESSIVITY with NONCONSTANT INCOME DISTRIBUTIONS

A great variety of measures of tax progressivity has been proposed in the literature. Global measures of tax progressivity associate a single real number with each tax schedule using the income distribution which holds in the respective economy. Though it seems that global measures of tax progressivity might most easily cope with different income distributions associated with different tax schedules, they may classify tax schedules with regressive intervals as progressive or proportional, and tax schedules with progressive intervals as regressive. This provokes the question whether it is valid to devise a single number to encapsulate what must be viewed as a series.