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5 - Prioritarianism and Measuring Social Progress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2022

By
Koen Decancq  and
Erik Schokkaert
Edited by
Matthew D. Adler  and
Ole F. Norheim
Matthew D. Adler
Affiliation:
Duke University, North Carolina
Ole F. Norheim
Affiliation:
Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
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Summary

In this chapter, we provide a critical review of the literature on social progress from a prioritarian perspective. We give special attention to the choice of the measure of individual well-being and the aggregation method across individuals in our discussion of various methods that have been proposed in the literature. We present the “growth incidence curve” as a useful device to chart social progress. We illustrate with empirical results for Russia in the period 1995–2005.

Keywords

social progresssocial conditionprioritarian social evaluationspreferencesgrowth incidence curve
Type
Chapter
Information
Prioritarianism in Practice , pp. 204 - 259
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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