The distribution of wealth in the liberal social contract

I want to consider several systems of private property, where individual agents can redistribute private wealth, individually or collectively, according to moral sentiments. The ‘Distributive Lindahl Equilibrium’ is considered first and it is proven unstable and ethically questionable. Then, a defin...

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Veröffentlicht in:European economic review 1998-02, Vol.42 (2), p.329-347
1. Verfasser: Ythier, Jean Mercier
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:I want to consider several systems of private property, where individual agents can redistribute private wealth, individually or collectively, according to moral sentiments. The ‘Distributive Lindahl Equilibrium’ is considered first and it is proven unstable and ethically questionable. Then, a definition of the ‘Distributive Liberal Social Contract’ is proposed which appears ethically and practically acceptable. The logical consistency of the liberal social contract is established in a theorem which proves the existence of such a contract for all initial distributions of wealth, when individual agents share the common opinions that wealth should be consumed by individuals rather than disposed of, and that gifts should flow down the scale of wealth. The distributive liberal social contracts are then the Pareto efficient distributions that are unanimously preferred to the initial distribution of rights.
ISSN:0014-2921
1873-572X
DOI:10.1016/S0014-2921(97)00068-8