Treading a Fine Line: Characterisations and Impossibilities for Liberal Principles in Innitely-Lived Societies1

This paper extends the analysis of liberal principles in social choice recently proposed by Mariotti and Veneziani (2009a) to in…nitely-lived societies. First, some novel characterisations of inegalitarian leximax social welfare relations are derived based on the Individual Bene…t Principle (IBP), which incorporates a liberal, non-interfering view of society. This is surprising because the IBP has no obvious inegalitarian content. Second, some impossibility results are derived that highlight a general tension between standard fairness and e¢ ciency axioms in social choice, and a liberal Principle of Non-Interference that generalises IBP. JEL classi…cation: D63; D70. Key-words: In…nite utility streams, Individual Bene…t Principle, leximax, Non-Interference, impossibility.