Equality of Resources Implies Equality of Welfare

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
If one is an egalitarian, should one try to equalize resources available to agents, or to equalize their welfares? With a suitably general conception of what resources are, these two conceptions cannot be distinguished. An allocation mechanism is defined on a space of economies, and is required to satisfy various axioms that are necessary conditions for “equalizing resources” among a population. The unique mechanism satisfying these axioms on a large domain of economies is the one that allocates commodities so as to equalize utilities of the agents. Methodologically, the theorem is a generalization of bargaining theory because the mechanisms are defined on commodity space.

This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit: