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Distribution and politics: a brief history and prospect

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. Or if the ethical observer wants to apply her own interpersonally comparable measure of well-being.

  2. The reader is referred to Silvestre (2003) for an interesting review of the Wicksell's work including its influence on Lindahl, and its frequent misinterpretation by modern writers.

  3. If this were not the case, we imagine that the member in question would ‘vote with his feet’ and switch to the other party.

  4. This statement is not quite accurate. Sometimes Wittman equilibrium exists on multi-dimensional policy spaces. For the details, consult Roemer (2001, Chapter 8.)

  5. Indeed, these binary relations are incomplete, so we cannot define payoff functions. Indeed, it is their incompleteness which is the key to securing existence of equilibrium on multi-dimensional policy spaces.

  6. For the full theory, see Roemer (1998) or Roemer (2001, Chapter 10).

  7. See Roemer (2005).

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to John Weymark for providing me with some historical ciatations of which I was unaware.

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  1. Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    John E. Roemer

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  1. John E. Roemer
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Correspondence to John E. Roemer.

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Roemer, J.E. Distribution and politics: a brief history and prospect. Soc Choice Welfare 25, 507–525 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-005-0016-8

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