On the representation and construction of equitable social welfare orders

Abstract

This paper examines the representation and explicit description of social welfare orders on infinite utility streams. It is assumed that the social welfare orders under investigation satisfy upper asymptotic Pareto and anonymity axioms. We prove that there exists no real-valued representation of such social welfare orders. In addition, we establish that the existence of a social welfare order satisfying the anonymity and upper asymptotic Pareto axioms implies the existence of a non-Ramsey set, which is a non-constructive object. Thus, we conclude that the social welfare orders under study do not admit explicit description.