Elitism and egalitarianism

Elitism and egalitarianism

As a collective group, scientists would probably vote slightly left of the centre, be more liberal in their political and social views and would be genuinely concerned about inequalities in society. Scientists rarely use the word ‘elite’ without some apologetic justification, yet we constantly speak about selection through excellence—and hence exclusion of a nonelite—without any blushes. Althou...

Elitism and stochastic dominance

Élitisme et Dominance Stochastique Résumé La dominance stochastique est traditionnellement associée à la mesure du risque et de l'inégalité et repose sur la concavité de la fonction d'utilité. Nous prétendons que l'approche en terme de dominance stochastique a des implications qui vont au-delà de la mesure du risque et de l'inégalité pour peu que l'on procède à certains ajustements. Nous appliq...

Transcendental Elitism

Egalitarianism and Competitiveness

The article discusses and analyzes data from several economic experiments in a household sur-vey with mothers of preschool children. The researchers measured competitiveness by giving the subjects the choice between competing in a tournament or receiving a piece rate for a real effort task. The subjects also participated in lottery choices, which enabled the researchers to assess their risk pre...

Egalitarianism and Incentives

A group of agents is collectively engaged in a joint productive activity. Each agent supplies an observable input, and output is then collectively shared among the members. A Bergson Samuelson welfare function defined on individual utilities describes the social values of the agents. However, individual actions are taken on a selfish basis. The collective decision cannot be precommitted, and is...