This study fortifies the links between economic philosophy and theory and between theory and practice. Chapter I develops a modern definition of utilitarianism and determines that the current form of utilitarianism upholds characteristics of overriding objectives, equality, welfarism, consequentialism, aggregation, and maximization. By connecting the characteristics of utilitarianism developed ...

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...

A simple linear programming problem permits a brief and elementary proof of Harsanyi’s utilitarianism theorem: a Paretian social welfare function must be a weighted (affine) sum of individual utility functions when individual utilities and social welfare all take the Neumann–Morgenstern form. By adjusting the programming problem slightly, we conclude that the weights on individual utilities are...

For a change in prices, the common-scaling social cost-of-living index is the equal scaling of every individual’s expenditure level needed to restore the level of social welfare to its pre-change value. This index does not, in general, satisfy two standard index-number tests. The reversal test requires the index value for the reverse change to be the reciprocal of the original index. And the ci...

If policy discounting is to have any welfare relevance, it must be a derivative of a social welfare function. If that derivative is to have a net present value (npv) form, the baseline allocation must be stationary. Given a stationary baseline in an overlapping generations growth economy the inter-generationally fair discount rate under the relative utilitarian welfare function equals the growt...

We examine the efficiency of conservation of a renewable resource whose natural productivity is influenced by random environmental disturbances. We allow for non-concave biological production and stock-dependent social welfare. Unlike deterministic models, conservation may be inefficient no matter how productive the resource growth function is. In addition, improvements in the natural productiv...

Distributed Social Constraints Optimization Problems (DSCOPs) are DCOPs in which the global objective function for optimization incorporates a social welfare function (SWF). DSCOPs have individual, non-binary and asym-metric constraints and thus form a unique DCOP class. DSCOPs provide a natural framework for agents that compute their costs individually and are therefore self-interested. The co...

the paper, first, reviews the development of social welfare issue and then investigates how primary welfare policy and social insurance has been formulated and accepted in europe. it is argued that social events which caused by industrialization and urbanization led to formation of social welfare and welfare state. eleven resources, in iran, have been known as welfare approaches and produced sp...

Social Determinants of Health Research Centre, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Umeå International School of Public Health, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå , Sweden. Department of Social Work, Umeå University, Umeå , Sweden. Social Determinants of Health Research Centre, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitati...