Taking Risks Behind the Veil of Ignorance

A natural view in distributive ethics is that everyone's interests matter, but the interests of the relatively worse off matter more than the interests of the relatively better off. I provide a new argument for this view. The argument takes as its starting point the proposal, due to Harsanyi and Rawls, that facts about distributive ethics are discerned from individual preferences in the "original position." I draw on recent work in decision theory, along with an intuitive principle about risk-taking, to derive the view

Prioritarianism and Optimal Taxation

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Nonexpected Utility and Coherence.

The descriptive power of expected utility has been challenged by behavioral evidence showing that people deviate systematically from the expected utility paradigm. Since the end of the 70's several alternatives to the classical expected utility paradigm have been proposed in order to accommodate these deviations. This thesis examines from a theoretical and experimental point of view the rank-dependent models, currently the most influential alternative to expected utility. The rank-dependent models propose a natural extension of expected utility by permitting nonlinear weighting of probabilities through decision weights. This thesis investigates the intuition underlying the rank-dependent models, the extension of de Finetti's coherence principle to the rank-dependent case, and the experimental elicitation of the decision weights. In addition, an alternative generalization of expected utility, the gambling effect model, is presented.

Distal Horizons: An investigation of the justifiable downstream limits to the positive protection of traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources within drug discovery

International initiatives, such as the Nagoya Protocol to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (the Protocol), have created (or are creating) “access and benefit sharing” rights which seek to ensure that genetic resources and traditional knowledge associated with such genetic resources (“TKAGR”) cannot be used without the consent of rights holders. These initiatives (including the Protocol) are unclear on how far non-consensual “use” extends to man-made downstream derivatives of the products of genetic expression. It also gives no guidance as to the degree to which control over TKAGR should extend throughout the drug discovery process. This work demonstrates how such TKAGR entering into a drug discovery process will be diluted with other information, used as an inspiration for further research, or for the development of research tools which may, in turn, lead to further discoveries and highlights how useful drugs may be very distal from the original inspiration provided by the TKAGR. This work also examines the causal link between an original piece of TKAGR and remote “downstream” uses of that information within drug discovery. It identifies “serendipitous” discoveries of unexpected second uses as a potential point at which the causation in law link to distal use may potentially be broken. This thesis examines the high level normative justifications for these rights, and in particular uses consequentialist/utilitarian, contribution/desert claims and distributive justice (Rawlsian maximin) claims to test their justifiable scope

An Examination Of Effort: An Experimental Approach

This dissertation studies issues associated with various topics related to a worker’s effort. For example, I explore how different wage incentives affect a worker’s productivity. I explore how exogenous shocks, what we often refer to as “luck,” can affect a worker’s motivation. In addition, I explore how different wage contracts destroy cooperation and can lead to destructive activities such as cheating and sabotage, as well as how these activates, in turn, affect productivity. Finally, in the last chapter, I analyze behavioral issues related to fairness and altruism in tournaments, and how these behaviors affect worker’s effort

An economic analysis of government expenditure allocations to black schooling in South Africa

In this thesis an assessment is made of the contribution of economic theory to the debate on government expenditure allocations to schooling in developing countries. Publicly provided Black schooling in South Africa is taken as the case study and viewed in the light of historical perspectives, as well as human capital, rent-seeking, welfare, liberal and contractarian theory. From an historical perspective, the willingness of Blacks to enrol at schools under National Party control, despite the poor quality of such schooling and lack of labour market incentives for them to do so, is paradoxical. It leads to the conclusion that under National Party administration the private benefit of Black schooling exceeded the private cost; a situation which is argued to have been influenced by rent-seeking. The propositions that government expenditure on Black schooling is a profitable social investment, and that rent-seeking has influenced the allocations of government expenditure on Black and White education are then investigated. Empirical support is found for both propositions, but it is based on the use of controversial methods and measures. The provision of education by the state can be justified on many economic grounds; the most popular being that this improves welfare by bringing about a better distribution of income or by redressing market failure. However, as there are major problems with this approach, it is concluded that neoclassical welfare theory fails to provide a persuasive justification for current levels of government expenditure on Black schooling. The provision of Black schooling by the state can also be justified in terms of liberal objectives. Classical and reform liberalism and their respective conclusions are examined. Marxist views on the role played by the state in the provision of education are also considered, but not found to be appropriate. Two contractarian assessments of the government's role in the provision of Black schooling are also provided in this thesis. They are based on the works of John Rawls (1971 and 1974) and James Buchanan (1986). The approach taken by James Buchanan is argued to be more appropriate to South African circumstances than Rawls's, and it is in the context of the former that problems with respect to public decisions on education and possible solutions to them are discussed. The conclusion of the thesis is that economic theory offers only a limited explanation for government expenditure allocations to Black education in South Afric

Fairness views in social and individual decisions

Fairness and efficiency are two classical and connected topics in economics. They have become well known, perhaps due to Adam Smith’s two influential works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), which highlights a concern for fairness concern as part of morality, and The Wealth of Nations (1776), which underlines a concern for efficiency. However, during the rapid development of economics, fairness has received disproportionately less attention than efficiency. As a result, many people, including some economists, have incorrectly understood that economics as a subject no longer cares about fairness. The primary objective of this thesis is to dispel this misperception. We would argue here that, similar to efficiency, fairness is an important factor for both social and individual decisions, and sometimes its effect can be determined. Written in a three-paper format, this thesis explores fairness from three different angles. These angles cover the broad areas of how theoretical economists model fairness in social choice theory, how the general public perceive distributive fairness, and how people implement their fairness norms in making real-life donations. This multidimensional exploration is believed to be crucial to a comprehensive understanding of fairness