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Economics > Theoretical Economics

Title: Share the Sugar

Abstract: We provide a general argument against value incomparability, based on a new style of impossibility result. In particular, we show that, against plausible background assumptions, value incomparability creates an incompatibility between two very plausible principles for ranking lotteries: a weak ``negative dominance'' principle (to the effect that Lottery 1 can be better than Lottery 2 only if some possible outcome of Lottery 1 is better than some possible outcome of Lottery 2) and a weak form of ex ante Pareto (to the effect that, if Lottery 1 gives an unambiguously better prospect to some individuals than Lottery 2, and equally good prospects to everyone else, then Lottery 1 is better than Lottery 2). After spelling out our results, and the arguments based on them, we consider which principle the proponent of incomparability ought to reject.
Subjects: Theoretical Economics (econ.TH)
Cite as: arXiv:2403.17641 [econ.TH]
  (or arXiv:2403.17641v1 [econ.TH] for this version)

Submission history

From: Harvey Lederman [view email]
[v1] Tue, 26 Mar 2024 12:21:57 GMT (27kb)

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