Inequality and welfare: Some axiomatic characterizations

Abstract

We characterize social welfare functions, which, under ceteris paribus assumptions, rank income distributions in exactly the same way as the negative of the Atkinson, Kolm–Pollak, and Theil mean logarithmic deviation indices of inequality of income distributions. While the first two characterizations rely on a general social welfare function, the third employs the symmetric utilitarian structure of the welfare function. Implications of several subsets of the set of axioms considered in the paper are also investigated.