Abstract
This article examines Mark Blaug's position on the normative character of Paretian welfare economics in general, and also specifically with respect to his debate with Pieter Hennipman over this question during the 1990s. The article also clarifies some of the confusions that emerged within the context of this debate, and provides as a conclusion some additional arguments supporting Mark Blaug's position, which he himself did not provide.
Highlights
This article examines Mark Blaug’s position on the normative character of Paretian welfare economics in general, and with respect to his debate with Pieter Hennipman over this question during the 1990s
What makes a particular piece of economic analysis “welfare economics” is the social welfare function and the question of whether the new welfare economics involves value judgments reduces to the question of the cognitive status of the social welfare function itself; Bergson and Samuelson were relatively silent about the cognitive status of the various parts of economic theory involved in welfare economics other than the SWF, such as the concept of a Pareto optimal/efficient allocation, the contract curve, and the associated fundamental theorems
This paper has tried to clarify the various points of view in the long-standing debate over the normative character of the new welfare economics: in general and with particular reference to Blaug’s debate with Hennipman
Summary
This article examines Mark Blaug’s position on the normative character of Paretian welfare economics in general, and with respect to his debate with Pieter Hennipman over this question during the 1990s. What makes a particular piece of economic analysis “welfare economics” is the social welfare function and the question of whether the new welfare economics involves value judgments reduces to the question of the cognitive status of the social welfare function itself; Bergson and Samuelson were relatively silent about the cognitive status of the various parts of economic theory involved in welfare economics other than (or prior to) the SWF, such as the concept of a Pareto optimal/efficient allocation, the contract curve, and the associated fundamental theorems.
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