Fairness with unequal productive skills among other-regarding individuals

Abstract

This paper deals with the fair ranking of allocations when individuals endowed with heterogeneous skills have other-regarding preferences over the average consumption of the other members of society. By assuming that such preferences matter for equality, we construct three social ordering functions that aim to reduce differences which originate in unequal productivities. These functions seek to maximise the smallest value of an interpersonally comparable measure of individual well-being that is related to a situation which involves neither unfair opportunities nor inequalities in consumption. More importantly, they provide society with different options at the time of making welfare evaluations when individuals are endowed with unequal productive skills and heterogeneous preferences.