From Individual Wellbeing to Collective Welfare

Individual Behaviors and Collective Welfare: Ramsey’s “microfoundations” of “macro-equilibrium”

Since the end of 1970's-and the success of the New Classical School –, the face of macroeconomics has changed profoundly. On the one hand, the research has turned gradually away from the analysis of the short-term fluctuations to favor a study of the long term determining factors of macroeconomic variables. One has studied the determinants of growth and has interpreted the cycles as fluctuation...

Wellbeing in the Welfare State

Wellbeing' and 'welfare' are often bracketed together, in particular wellbeing and state-welfare. The level of wellbeing is believed to be higher in welfare states, and its distribution more equitable. This theory is tested in a comparative study of 40 nations 1980-1990. The size of state welfare is measured by social security expenditure. The wellbeing of citizens is measured in terms of the d...

A switch from joint to individual taxation is welfare improving

In this paper we empirically derive the welfare effects of a shift from joint taxation with full income splitting to a revenue neutral system of individual taxation in Germany. For the empirical welfare evaluation we estimate the preference heterogeneity in the population and use normative welfare concepts proposed in Fleurbaey (2006) to solve the difficulties of comparison between, and aggrega...

From individual to collective dynamics in Argentine ants (Linepithema humile).

In this paper we propose a model for the formation of paths in Argentine ants when foraging in an empty arena. Based on experimental observations, we provide a distribution for the random change in direction that they approximately undergo while foraging as a mixture of a Gaussian and a Pareto distribution. By following the principles described in previous work, we consider persistence and rein...

Mandevillian Intelligence: From Individual Vice to Collective Virtue