NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

A Contribution to the Theory of Welfare Comparisons

Martin L. Weitzman

NBER Working Paper No. 6988*
Issued in February 1999
NBER Program(s):   PE

Using only information based on current directly-observable market behavior, the paper shows how to make rigorous dynamic welfare comparisons among economies or economic situations having arbitrarily-different endowments and technologies, but sharing a common dynamic preference ordering. The correct answers to seemingly complicated questions, which intrinsically involve comparing wealth-like measures of dynamic well-being, can be translated isomorphically into a simple-minded story told in the familiar language of old-fashioned static consumer-welfare theory.

*Published: Weitzman, Martin L. "A Contribution To The Theory Of Welfare Accounting," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2001, v103(1,Mar), 1-23.

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