社会选择的基本问题与人际可比基数效用的悖论

Fundamental Problems of Social Choice and the Paradox of Inter-Personally Comparable Cardinal Utility

社会选择的三个基本问题是:什么是决定社会选择所需的信息?如何取得所需的信息?社会福祉函数应该采取何种形式?著者认为社会福祉函数应该是人们的基数效用或福祉的无权总和。排除基数效用或偏好的强度是阿罗(Arrow)不可能定理成立的关键。人际可比的基数效用是社会选择所须要有的信息,但这信息很难获得,因而有“人际可比基数效用的悖论”。以人们的支付意愿来衡量偏好的强度,以无权总和来进行决策。在个别问题上,以效率挂帅,平等的目标由整体的平等政策来达致,可以在超过百分之九十的经济政策(甚至其他)领域解除这个悖论,并使社会决策简单和有效率。

Three fundamental questions of social choice are： what information social choice basing on, how to approach this information, which form social welfare function should be. This thesis discusses these questions and argues that social welfare function should be obtained as a non-weighted sum of individual cardinal utility functions. The resolution of the paradox of inter-personally comparable cardinal utility and its application in economic policy are also given.