6,808 research outputs found
The social welfare function and individual responsibility: Some theoretical issues and empirical evidence from health
The literature on income distribution has attempted to quantitatively analyse different degrees of inequality using a social welfare function (SWF) approach. However, it has largely ignored the source of such inequalities, and has thus failed to consider different degrees of inequity. The literature on egalitarianism has addressed issues of equity, largely in relation to individual responsibility. This paper brings these two literatures together by introducing the concept of individual responsibility into the SWF approach. The results from an empirical study of people’s preferences in relation to the distribution of health benefits are presented to illustrate how the parameter values in such a SWF might be determined
The Weyl-Lanczos Equations and the Lanczos Wave Equation in 4 Dimensions as Systems in Involution
Using the work by Bampi and Caviglia, we write the Weyl-Lanczos equations as
an exterior differential system. Using Janet-Riquier theory, we compute the
Cartan characters for all spacetimes with a diagonal metric and for the plane
wave spacetime since all spacetimes have a plane wave limit. We write the
Lanczos wave equation as an exterior differential system and, with assistance
from Janet-Riquier theory, we find that it forms a system in involution. This
result can be derived from the scalar wave equation itself. We compute its
Cartan characters and compare them with those of the Weyl-Lanczos equations.Comment: 18 pages, latex, no figures, references correcte
The social welfare function and individual responsibility: Some theoretical issues and empirical evidence from health
The literature on income distribution has attempted to quantitatively analyse different degrees of inequality using a social welfare function (SWF) approach. However, it has largely ignored the source of such inequalities, and has thus failed to consider different degrees of inequity. The literature on egalitarianism has addressed issues of equity, largely in relation to individual responsibility. This paper brings these two literatures together by introducing the concept of individual responsibility into the SWF approach. The results from an empirical study of people’s preferences in relation to the distribution of health benefits are presented to illustrate how the parameter values in such a SWF might be determined
Equality of what in health? Distinguishing between outcome egalitarianism and gain egalitarianism
When deciding how to weigh benefits to different groups, standard economic models assume that people focus on the final distribution of utility, health or whatever. Thus, an egalitarian is assumed to be egalitarian in the outcome space. But what about egalitarianism in the gains space, such that people focus instead on how equally benefits are distributed? This paper reports on a study in which members of the public were asked to rank a number of health programmes that differed in the distribution of benefits and final outcomes in ways that enabled us to distinguish between different types of egalitarianism. The results suggest that outcome egalitarianism dominates, particularly for differences in health by social class, but a sizeable minority of respondents appear to be gain egalitarians, especially when the health differences are by sex. These results have important implications for how we think about outcome-based social welfare functions in economics
Measuring the societal value of lifetime health
This paper considers two societal concerns in addition to health maximisation: first, concerns for the societal value of lifetime health for an individual; and second, concerns for the value of lifetime health across individuals. Health-related social welfare functions (HRSWFs) have addressed only the second concern. We propose a model that expresses the former in a metric – the adult healthy-year equivalent (AHYE) – that can be incorporated into standard HRSWFs. An empirical study based on this formulation shows that both factors matter: health losses in childhood are weighted more heavily than losses in adulthood and respondents wish to reduce inequalities in AHYEs
Measuring the societal value of lifetime health
This paper considers two societal concerns in addition to health maximisation: first, concerns for the societal value of lifetime health for an individual; and second, concerns for the value of lifetime health across individuals. Health-related social welfare functions (HRSWFs) have addressed only the second concern. We propose a model that expresses the former in a metric – the adult healthy-year equivalent (AHYE) – that can be incorporated into standard HRSWFs. An empirical study based on this formulation shows that both factors matter: health losses in childhood are weighted more heavily than losses in adulthood and respondents wish to reduce inequalities in AHYEs
Non-commutative Complex Projective Spaces and the Standard Model
The standard model fermion spectrum, including a right handed neutrino, can
be obtained as a zero-mode of the Dirac operator on a space which is the
product of complex projective spaces of complex dimension two and three. The
construction requires the introduction of topologically non-trivial background
gauge fields. By borrowing from ideas in Connes' non-commutative geometry and
making the complex spaces `fuzzy' a matrix approximation to the fuzzy space
allows for three generations to emerge. The generations are associated with
three copies of space-time. Higgs' fields and Yukawa couplings can be
accommodated in the usual way.Comment: Contribution to conference in honour of A.P. Balachandran's 65th
birthday: "Space-time and Fundamental Interactions: Quantum Aspects", Vietri
sul Mare, Italy, 25th-31st May, 2003, 10 pages, typset in LaTe
Determining the parameters in a social welfare function using stated preference data: an application to health
One way in which economists might determine how best to balance the competing objectives of efficiency and equity is to specify a social welfare function (SWF). This paper looks at how the stated preferences of a sample of the general public can be used to estimate the shape of the SWF in the domain of health benefits. The results suggest that it is possible to determine the parameters in a social welfare function from stated preference data, but show that people are sensitive to what inequalities exist and to the groups across which those inequalities exist
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