Welfare economics and social choise theory [WorldCat Entities]

"This book covers the main topics of welfare economics - general equilib rium models of exchange and production, Pareto optimality, externalities and public goods - and some of the major topic of social choice the ory - compensation criteria, fairness, voting, Arrow's Theorem, and stra tegic behavior. The underlying question is this: "Is a particular economic or voting mechanism good or bad for society?" Welfare economics is mainly about whether the market mechanism is good or bad; social choice is largely about whether voting mechanisms can improve upon the results of the market. The book grew out of my undergraduate welfare economics course at Brown University, and it is intended for the undergraduate student who has some prior familiarity with microeconomics. However the book is also use ful for graduate students and professionals, economists and non-econo mists, who want an overview of welfare and social choice results unbur dened by detail and mathematical complexity."
"Welfare economics, and social choice theory, are disciplines that blend economics, ethics, political science, and mathematics. Topics in "Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory, 2nd Edition", include models of economic exchange and production, uncertainty, optimality, public goods, social improvement criteria, life and death choices, majority voting, Arrow's theorem, and theories of implementation and mechanism design. Our goal is to make value judgments about economic and political mechanisms: for instance, does the competitive market produce distributions of products and services that are good or bad for society? Does majority voting produce good or bad outcomes? How can we design tax mechanisms that result in efficient amounts of public goods being produced? We have attempted, in this book, to minimize mathematical obstacles, and to make this field accessible to undergraduate and graduate students and the interested non-expert."
"Covers topics such as: models of economic exchange and production, uncertainty, optimality, public goods, social improvement criteria, life and death choices, majority voting, Arrow's theorem, and theories of implementation and mechanism design. This book aims to make value judgments about economic and political mechanisms."@en