Economics and the Public Welfare

Welfare Economics and Public Finance

This contribution deals firstly with the differences between market action and government action, and then explores the justification for government intervention based on concepts of economic efficiency and equity. The chapter then proceeds to discuss individual cases in which unregulated private market outcomes are generally considered to violate this criterion.

Welfare Economics and Public Choice

Welfare economics provides the basis for judging the achievements of markets and policy makers in allocating resources. Its most powerful conceptual tool is the utility possibility frontier. This defines the set of utility allocations that can be achieved in a society subject to the constraints of tastes and technologies. Any allocation on the frontier cannot be Pareto dominated and hence would...

Altruism, evolution, and welfare economics

Henrich clearly presents the convincing evidence that the evolution of prosocial preferences—altruism and altruistic punishment—is both theoretically possible and empirically present in human populations. Henrich convinces us using only the most restrictive arguments. If one goes beyond the assumptions of one-gene, one-trait, or recognizes the existence of “social cognition” (Caporael, 1997), t...

Economics and Farm Animal Welfare

The Economics of Animal Health and Welfare

Introduction There are many definitions of the term ‘animal welfare’ (Swanson, 1995; Spedding, 2000). For instance: “welfare is normally defined as a state of well-being, in which at least basic needs are met and suffering is minimized” (Spedding, 2000, p.9). This is a simplistic definition, which deals mainly with an animal’s physical needs and implies that suffering can only be minimised. Thi...