Do Irrelevant Commodities Matter?

Abstract

We study the possibility of making social evaluations of allocations independently of individuals' preferences over unavailable commodities. This is related to the well-known problem of performing international comparisons of standard of living across countries with different consumption goods. We prove impossibility results which suggest that such evaluations encounter difficulties when the objects of evaluation are allocations of ordinary commodities. We show how possibility results can be retrieved when the objects of evaluation are allocations of composite commodities, characteristics or human functionings.consumer preferences, social choice, irrelevant commodities, functionings