Open AccessWho's afraid of aggregating money metrics?
Author(s) -
Bosmans Kristof,
Decancq Koen,
Ooghe Erwin
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
theoretical economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.404
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1555-7561
pISSN - 1933-6837
DOI - 10.3982/te2825
Subject(s) - axiom , anonymity , welfarism , mathematical economics , monotonic function , social welfare function , economics , social choice theory , key (lock) , metric (unit) , function (biology) , aggregate (composite) , microeconomics , computer science , econometrics , welfare , mathematics , computer security , mathematical analysis , operations management , materials science , geometry , evolutionary biology , market economy , composite material , biology
We provide an axiomatic justification to aggregate money metrics. The key axiom requires the approval of richer‐to‐poorer transfers that preserve the overall efficiency of the distribution. This transfer principle—together with the basic axioms of anonymity, continuity, monotonicity, and a version of welfarism—characterizes a standard social welfare function defined over money metric utilities.