Freedom in Welfare Economics

Abstract

This paper discusses the recent economics literature on ranking opportunity sets in terms of freedom. It focuses on (i) the intuitive significance of freedom in assessing economic and public policies, (ii) the measurement of freedom offered by various opportunity sets, and (iii) the conception of opportunity set in a world of interdependence among individuals. This paper also points out some open issues and problems that deserve further investigations.

Keywords

freedom / preference / utility / measurement of freedom

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2014 Higher Education Press and Brill