Vilfredo Pareto's Manual of Political Economy is a 'classic' study in the history of economic thought. It is not only one of the leading works in the Lausanne tradition of economics, which centres on the theory of general equilibrium, it is one of the most important books in the history of neoclassical economics. This 'critical edition' of Pareto's Manual of Political Economy is a very significant work for two main reasons. First, it is the only variorum translation of (...) the 1906 Italian language Manuale di Economia Politica and the 1909 French language Manuel d'Économie Politique. Second, it includes extensive contributions by the editors, all of whom are authorities on the work of Pareto. It total, the editorial contribution are around two hundred pages and range from brief annotations, to extended editors' notes and detailed notes on the 1909 mathematical appendix. (shrink)

v. 1. Lo sviluppo del capitalismo (1872-1895).--v. 2. Reazione, liberta, fascismo (1896-1923).

Social robotics has a high disruptive potential, for it expands the field of application of intelligent technology to practical contexts of a relational nature. Due to their capacity to “intersubjectively” interact with people, social robots can take over new roles in our daily activities, multiplying the ethical implications of intelligent robotics. In this paper, we offer some preliminary considerations for the ethical reflection on social robotics, so that to clarify how to correctly orient the critical-normative thinking in this arduous task. (...) We defend the ‘being perspective’ and its linked categories of ‘teleology’ and ‘interest’ as the ones from which to articulate the reflection. We argue that attending primarily to the ‘being’, before the ‘doing’, of robots allow us to correctly approach the core phenomenon of all ethical concerns on social robotics, avoiding the reductionisms in the ethical gaze to which the latter may lead. (shrink)

It is possible that the world contains infinitely many agents that have positive and negative levels of well-being. Theories have been developed to ethically rank such worlds based on the well-being levels of the agents in those worlds or other qualitative properties of the worlds in question, such as the distribution of agents across spacetime. In this thesis I argue that such ethical rankings ought to be consistent with the Pareto principle, which says that if two worlds contain the (...) same agents and some agents are better off in the first world than they are in the second and no agents are worse off than they are in the second, then the first world is better than the second. I show that if we accept four axioms – the Pareto principle, transitivity, an axiom stating that populations of worlds can be permuted, and the claim that if the ‘at least as good as’ relation holds between two worlds then it holds between qualitative duplicates of this world pair – then we must conclude that there is ubiquitous incomparability between infinite worlds. I show that this is true even if the populations of infinite worlds are disjoint or overlapping, and that we cannot use any qualitative properties of world pairs to rank these worlds. Finally, I argue that this incomparability result generates puzzles for both consequentialist and non-consequentialist theories of objective and subjective permissibility. (shrink)

The Pareto principle states that if the members of society express the same preference judgment between two options, this judgment is compelling for society. A building block of normative economics and social choice theory, and often borrowed by contemporary political philosophy, the principle has rarely been subjected to philosophical criticism. The paper objects to it on the ground that it indifferently applies to those cases in which the individuals agree on both their expressed preferences and their reasons for entertaining (...) them, and those cases in which they agree on their expressed preferences, while differing on their reasons. The latter are cases of "spurious unanimity", and it is normatively inappropriate, or so the paper argues, to defend unanimity preservation at the social level for them, so the Pareto principle is formulated much too broadly. The objection seems especially powerful when the principle is applied in an ex ante context of uncertainty, in which individuals can disagree on both their probabilities and utilities, and nonetheless agree on their preferences over prospects. (shrink)

The paper deals with three interrelated Pareto’s contributions to fiscal sociology of relevant contemporary importance, i. e., the maximum of utility of the community as a sociological process (Pareto II criterion of maximum welfare), the non logical actions consisting of derivations based on residuals and the theory of the elites. Pareto II welfare criterion of sociological maximization of individual utilities is compared with Pareto I welfare criterion, commonly known as Pareto criterion, introducing the process of (...) valuations by the elite of the utilities of different social groups weighed according to their residuals. Derivations are essentials to persuade the masses to move to the points designed by the elite. The process is subject to the law of circulation of the elites which leads to different sociological equilibriums. The theories of the elites of Pareto and Mosca, criticized by Einaudi, are then compared. For a disenchanted analysis of the fiscal processes and designs, Pareto’s sociology may still provide to the economist more than a help. (shrink)

A two-stage sequential choice model is studied, the first stage being defined by q-Pareto multicriterial choice rule, and the second stage being defined by scalar extremization model. In this model, at the first stage the q-Pareto rule choses alternatives which are not only undominated in terms of Pareto comparison, but also includes into choice the alternatives which are dominated by no more than q alternatives. Since the choice set of the first-stage usually contains too many elements, obtained (...) set is used as a presentation for the second stage constructed by a scalar extremization model. The properties of the model are studied as well as its representability to one-stage scalar extremization model. (shrink)

We consider situations of multiple referendum: finitely many yes-or-no issues have to be socially assessed from a set of approval ballots, where voters approve as many issues as they want. Each approval ballot is extended to a complete preorder over the set of outcomes by means of a preference extension. We characterize, under a mild richness condition, the largest domain of top-consistent and separable preference extensions for which issue-wise majority voting is Pareto efficient, i.e., always yields out a (...) class='Hi'>Pareto-optimal outcome. Top-consistency means that voters’ ballots are their unique most preferred outcome. It appears that the size of this domain becomes negligible relative to the size of the full domain as the number of issues increases. (shrink)

Pareto isn't interested in the nature of politics but in the political society and in its equilibrium. The method he finally adopted, after some hesitations, is the one he tested in his economical and sociological research work. Analysing the changing of the elites, he stresses the importance of the minority that is in power. However the decline of an oligarchy is always concomitant with the coming up of another one. As far as Pareto's personal political stand is concerned (...) he was neither a fascist nor a democrat but a liberal. This is revealed by a careful analysis of his works, from the first to the last of his writings. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationship among the weak Pareto principle, the strong Pareto principle, and positive responsiveness in the context of voting. First, it is shown that under a mild domain condition, if an anonymous and neutral collective choice rule (CCR) is complete and transitive, then the weak Pareto principle and the strong Pareto principle are equivalent. Next, it is shown that under another mild domain condition, if a neutral CCR is transitive, then the strong (...) class='Hi'>Pareto principle and positive responsiveness are equivalent. By applying these results, we obtain a new characterization of the method of majority decision. (shrink)

Pareto principles are at the core of ethics and decision theory. The Strong Pareto principle says that if one thing is better than another for someone and at least as good for everyone else, then the one is overall better than the other. But a host of famous figures express it differently, with ‘not worse’ in place of ‘at least as good.’ In the presence of parity (or incommensurability), this results in a strictly stronger Pareto principle, which (...) I call Super‐Strong Pareto. Super‐Strong Pareto, however, yields cyclic betterness and is therefore false. I point out a number of influential arguments—concerning population ethics, collective action problems, and decision‐making in the face of parity and uncertainty—that crucially rely on Super‐Strong Pareto and are therefore unsound. I then turn to the most influential argument against the possibility of parity—Broome's collapsing argument—and argue that it likewise relies on Super‐Strong Pareto reasoning and is therefore question‐begging. Finally, I turn to the much‐neglected question of how to justify Strong Pareto. The answer I arrive at, which emphasizes tie‐breaking, yields a striking insight, namely that Super‐Strong Pareto amounts to the denial of insensitivity to mild sweetening. That is what makes it problematic in the presence of parity. (shrink)

The Pareto argument for inequality holds that any change from a position of equality to one of inequality is justified so long as everyone benefits from the change. G.A. Cohen criticizes this argument (which he attributes to Rawls) on the ground that changes can normally be found which preserve both equality and Pareto‐efficiency. However, this does not resolve the basic conflict between the two desiderata. Strong egalitarians hold that Pareto changes are not for the better if they (...) increase inequality too greatly. Thus if the Pareto argument holds, then strong egalitarianism is unsustainable. I argue that egalitarians need not be troubled by the Pareto argument for inequality. The Pareto criterion would not be widely accepted unless it takes account of moral harms; but if it does take account of moral harms then there is no reason to doubt that egalitarian concerns can be incorporated into the Pareto argument. (shrink)

One of the more obscure arguments for Rawls’ difference principle dubbed ‘the Pareto argument for inequality’ has been criticised by G. A. Cohen (1995, 2008) as being inconsistent. In this paper, we examine and clarify the Pareto argument in detail and argue (1) that justification for the Pareto principles derives from rational selfinterest and thus the Pareto principles ought to be understood as conditions of individual rationality, (2) that the Pareto argument is not inconsistent, contra (...) Cohen, and (3) that the kind of bargaining model required to arrive at the particular unequal distribution that the difference principle picks out is a model that is not based on bargaining according to one’s threat advantage. (shrink)

Although Pareto is considered a 'founding father' of both sociology and mathematical economics, his contribution to political theory has been largely neglected. This new book fills this gap by offering a critical examination of Pareto's significance for political theory." "Joseph V. Femia builds a case for Pareto's importance as a thinker who reflected on the most fundamental issues of political discourse: individualism vs. holism; science vs. hermeneutics; laissez faire vs. social engineering; and value relativism vs. moral absolutism. (...) In all these debates, Pareto offered provocative insights." "This text will be of interest to students and scholars of Political Philosophy, Sociology and History."--Jacket. (shrink)

The concept of ‘pareto superiority’ plays a central role in ethics, economics, and law. Pareto superiority is sometimes taken as a relation between outcomes, and sometimes as a relation between actions—even where the outcomes of the actions are uncertain. Whether one action is classed as (ex ante) pareto superior to another depends on the prospects under the actions for each person concerned. I argue that a person’s prospects (in this context) can depend on how that person is (...) designated. Without any constraints on acceptable designators, then, the concept of pareto superiority is ill defined and gives inconsistent results. I consider various ways of completing the definition and draw out some surprising implications. (shrink)

In his sociological works Pareto developed a theory of cyclical social change within the general equilibrium framework. Building on an earlier propositional formalization, we translate Pareto's theory into a series of simultaneous equations and simulate the equation system. The dynamic behavior of the simulation is consistent with Pareto's predictions and demonstrates the internal logic of the theory.

In searching for an appropriate utility function in the expected utility framework, we formulate four properties that we want the utility function to satisfy. We conduct a search for such a function, and we identify Pareto utility as a function satisfying all four desired properties. Pareto utility is a flexible yet simple and parsimonious two-parameter family. It exhibits decreasing absolute risk aversion and increasing but bounded relative risk aversion. It is applicable irrespective of the probability distribution relevant to (...) the prospect to be evaluated. Pareto utility is therefore particularly suited for catastrophic risk analysis. A new and related class of generalized exponential (gexpo) utility functions is also studied. This class is particularly relevant in situations where absolute risk tolerance is thought to be concave rather than linear. (shrink)

Florida International University, USA edwardj{at}fiu.edu ' + u + '@ ' + d + ' '/ /- -> Several authors have analyzed the optimal k -majority rule based on a variety of criteria. Buchanan and Tullock argued that, in constitutional settings, the criterion should be that all changes meet the Pareto criterion; otherwise the status quo should be preferred. They then asserted that unanimity rule would be the preferred voting rule in this setting. In parliamentary settings, they claimed that (...) a near majority rule would be preferred because it minimizes the sum of decision costs and external costs. This article investigates both claims in an N -voter, two-alternative setting. We show the conditions under which unanimity rule is less likely to select BT preferred alternatives than other k -majority rules and prove that the difference in performance can be negligible when N is large and certain weak conditions are met. Furthermore, if we define external costs as the expected number of losers from a BT-inferior vote, then external costs become negligible for a range of supermajority rules. This implies that unanimity rule and a range of supermajority rules should be equally preferred when decision costs are added. Finally, we show that the external cost function can actually increase for certain populations. Many of the broader conclusions should also hold for multiple alternatives. Key Words: constitutional design • Pareto criterion • external costs • social contract. (shrink)

Anna Mahtani describes a puzzle meant to show that the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle is incomplete as it stands and, since it cannot be completed in a satisfactory manner, decades of debate in welfare economics and ethics are undermined. In this paper, we provide a better solution to the puzzle which saves the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle from this challenge. We also explain how the plausibility of our solution is reinforced by its similarity to a standard solution to an analogous (...) puzzle in quantified epistemic logic. We also show that even if the puzzle were to remain unsolved, its impact on welfare economics and ethics would be limited. (shrink)

Voters satisfy maximin or maximax in their choices between sets of alternatives and secure a Pareto improvement by all voting strategically under simple majority voting for particular sincere preferences. Thus the assumption that strategic voting is a bad thing is challenged and the idea that we should reject voting because of the possibility of misrepresentation dismissed.

Policy-makers must sometimes choose between an alternative which has somewhat lower expected value for each person, but which will substantially improve the outcomes of the worst off, or an alternative which has somewhat higher expected value for each person, but which will leave those who end up worst off substantially less well off. The popular ex ante Pareto principle requires the choice of the alternative with higher expected utility for each. We argue that ex ante Pareto ought to (...) be rejected because it conflicts with the requirement that, when possible, one ought to decide as one would with full information. We apply our argument in an analysis of US policy on screening for breast cancer. -/- . (shrink)

Some ways of defending inequality against the charge that it is unjust require premises that egalitarians find easy to dismiss—statements, for example, about the contrasting deserts and/or entitlements of unequally placed people. But a defense of inequality suggested by John Rawls and elaborated by Brian Barry has often proved irresistible even to people of egalitarian outlook. The persuasive power of this defense of inequality has helped to drive authentic egalitarianism, of an old-fashioned, uncompromising kind, out of contemporary political philosophy. The (...) present essay is part of an attempt to bring it back in. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the notion of a minimal belief change that incorporates new information. I apply the fundamental decisiontheoretic principle of Pareto-optimality to derive a notion of minimal belief change, for two different representations of belief: First, for beliefs represented by a theory –a deductively closed set of sentences or propositions–and second for beliefs represented by an axiomatic base for a theory. Three postulates exactly characterize Pareto-minimal revisions of theories, yielding a weaker set of constraints than the standard (...) AGM postulates. The Levi identity characterizes Pareto-minimal revisions of belief bases: a change of belief base is Pareto-minimal if and only if the change satisfies the Levi identity (for “maxichoice” contraction operators). Thus for belief bases, Pareto-minimality imposes constraints that the AGM postulates do not. Keywords: belief revision, decision theory.. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is a discussion of the meaning and relevance of the Pareto principle in economics. To begin with, the principle is briefly retraced in Pareto’s own writings. Its contemporary meaning was, however, developed in the context of the “New Welfare Economics”. While Pareto technically employed the principle in order to describe an equilibrium situation, Kaldor and Hicks developed it somewhat differently as a yardstick for economic policy formulation. Sometimes, the principle is also discussed (...) as a decision rule, and in this context some critics - though not the present author - believe it to have a conservative bias. Finally, recent discussions center around the incompatibility of the Pareto principle and “liberal” values. This conflict might be of limited relevance, only, due to a misconstrued formalism. (shrink)

In this article, we consider estimation of the parameters of a generalized Pareto distribution and some lifetime indices such as those relating to reliability and hazard rate functions when the failure data are progressive first-failure censored. Both classical and Bayesian techniques are obtained. In the Bayesian framework, the point estimations of unknown parameters under both symmetric and asymmetric loss functions are discussed, after having been estimated using the conjugate gamma and discrete priors for the shape and scale parameters, respectively. (...) In addition, both exact and approximate confidence intervals as well as the exact confidence region for the estimators are constructed. A practical example using a simulated data set is analyzed. Finally, the performance of Bayes estimates is compared with that of maximum likelihood estimates through a Monte Carlo simulation study. (shrink)

The coherence of general good turns out to conflict with the widely accepted Pareto principle. This chapter explains the conflict and resolves it in favour of coherence. It also presents an example of a head‐on collision between coherence and the Pareto principle. The example relies on an auxiliary assumption, but one that is very plausible. The principle of personal good is immune to the difficulty raised by the probability agreement theorem. The theorem presents welfare economics with a dilemma: (...) it must abandon either the coherence of social preferences or else the traditional Pareto principle. Either way, it will have to repudiate Harsanyi's theorem. The ex‐ante school of welfare economists abandons coherence. This is the best established school. The ex‐ante school cleaves to the traditional Pareto principle. Consequently, it has to accept incoherent social preferences. (shrink)

Thomas Kroedel has recently proposed an interesting Pareto-style condition on permissible belief. Despite the condition’s initial plausibility, this paper aims at providing a counterexample to it. The example is based on the view that a proper condition on permissible belief should not give permission to believe a proposition that undermines one’s belief system or whose epistemic standing decreases in the light of one’s de facto beliefs.

The Pareto principle is in fact the fundamental concept of welfare economics. However, it has serious analytical and heuristic limits, is selective and conservative in nature and use, and is heavily normative notwithstanding the pretensions by advocates of its positive character.

This paper shows that weak Pareto and strong Pareto are equivalent under continuity and strong quasi-concavity. We use a framework that incorporates welfare as well as non-welfare information.