Treading a Fine Line: Characterisations and Impossibilities for Liberal Principles in Infinitely-Lived Societies

Abstract

This paper extends the analysis of liberal principles in social choice recently proposed by Mariotti and Veneziani (2009a) to infinitely-lived societies. First, some novel characterisations of inegalitarian leximax social welfare relations are derived based on the Individual Benefit Principle (IBP), which incorporates a liberal, non-interfering view of society. This is surprising because the IBP has no obvious inegalitarian content. Second, some impossibility results are derived that highlight a general tension between standard fairness and efficiency axioms in social choice, and a liberal Principle of Non-Interference that generalises IBP.

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