No, it is IMpossibility. It has to do with minimizing the chance of
making a mistake. If you do not know whose tastes are expensive and
whose are simple, you give them both the same.
At 17:20 22/04/2007, Jim Devine wrote:
Robert Gassler wrote:
I seem to recall that Lutz and Lux in their The Challenge of
Humanistic Economics pointed out that the utilitarians of the 19th
century thought that the impossibility of interpersonal comparisons
implied that all people should make the same income.<
rather, it's the possibility of interpersonal comparisons of utility
(and diminishing marginal utility) that implies egalitarianism (in
this view). If giving $100 to a rich guy gives him less extra utility
than it would to a poor guy (under diminishing marginal utility), then
taking away $100 from the rich guy and giving it to the poor guy would
increase over-all utility. We could continue this until their incomes
are roughly equal. Thus, the neoclassicals decided to drop
interpersonal comparisons of utility when they could.
By the way, at 6'4" (1m93) I take issue with Prof Mankiw. My
grad-school colleague [the?] Dennis Miller once wrote that tall
people have shorter lifespans. It should even out somehow.<
it's likely true: big dogs live shorter lives than small ones do, after all.
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your
own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
