Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T16:26:52.885Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

CRITICAL NOTICE: MACROJUSTICE AS A RESEARCH PROGRAMME

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

Erik Schokkaert
Erik Schokkaert*
Affiliation:
KU Leuven and Université catholique de Louvain
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this book, the French economist and philosopher Serge-Christophe Kolm discusses the problem of what he calls “macrojustice”, which “concerns the most general rules of society and their application to the distribution of the benefits from the main resources” (MJ 1). He reminds his readers that the first and most important challenge for any policy analysis is the spelling out of its ethical foundations. On that basis, he argues in favour of what is nothing less than a paradigm shift in the theory of optimal income taxation, rejecting the whole traditional approach in public economics as being welfarist and too strongly focused on the problem of labour market distortions. As an alternative, he proposes an approach based on the ideal of equal freedom, and works out a specific tax proposal: equal-labour income equalization (or ELIE). He claims that ELIE is a general and operational solution for the organization of the distribution branch of taxation and public expenditure policy that does not create labour market distortions.

Type
Discussion
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 69 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Boadway, R., Leite-Monteiro, M., Marchand, M. and Pestieau, P.. 2006. Social insurance and redistribution with moral hazard and adverse selection. Scandinavian Journal of Economics 108: 279–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleurbaey, M. 2003. On the informational basis of social choice. Social Choice and Welfare 21: 347–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleurbaey, M. and Maniquet, F.. 1996. Fair allocation with unequal production skills: the no envy approach to compensation. Mathematical Social Sciences 32: 71–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleurbaey, M. and Maniquet, F.. 2006. Fair income tax. Review of Economic Studies 73: 55–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaertner, W., Pattanaik, P. and Suzumura, K.. 1992. Individual rights revisited. Economica 59: 161–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanushek, E. and Welch, F.. 2006. Handbook of the economics of education. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Kolm, S.-Chr. 1969. The optimal production of social justice. In Public economics. Proceedings of the International Economics Association Conference on Public Economics, Biarritz, ed. Guitton, H. and Margolis, J.. London: McMillan.Google Scholar
Kolm, S.-Chr. 1970. L'Etat et le systeme des prix. Paris: Dunod-CNRS.Google Scholar
Kolm, S.-Chr. 1971. Justice et équité. Paris: CEPREMAP.Google Scholar
Kolm, S.-Chr. 1976a. Unequal inequalities. I. Journal of Economic Theory 12: 416–442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolm, S.-Chr. 1976b. Unequal inequalities. II. Journal of Economic Theory 13: 82–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolm, S.-Chr. 1982. Le Bonheur-Liberté (Bouddhisme profond et modernité). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Kolm, S.-Chr. 1984. La bonne économie. La réciprocité génerale. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolm, S.-Chr. 1985. Le contrat social libéral: philosophie et pratique du libéralisme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolm, S.-Chr. 1987. L'Homme pluridimensionnel (bouddhisme, marxisme, psychanalyse pour une économie de l'esprit). Paris: Albin Michel.Google Scholar
Kolm, S.-Chr. 1988. Economics in Europe and the US. European Economic Review 32: 207–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolm, S.-Chr. 2004. Liberty and distribution: Macrojustice from social freedom. Social Choice and Welfare 22: 113–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konow, J. 2003. Which is the fairest one of all? A positive analysis of justice theories. Journal of Economic Literature 41: 1188–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maniquet, F. 1998. An equal right solution to the compensation-responsibility dilemma. Mathematical Social Sciences 35: 185–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ooghe, E. and Schokkaert, E.. 2007. Is ELIE a wasteful minimum income scheme? KULeuven, Department of Economics: Mimeo.Google Scholar