FIL2001 Welfare and Equality
- Number of credits10
- Teaching semester2023 Autumn, 2024 Autumn, 2025 Autumn
- Language of instructionEnglish
- CampusLillehammer
- Required prerequisite knowledge
Recommended that the students have completed the courses Makroøkonomi (course code to be determined) and either Ethical Theories (FIL1005) or INT1014 Politisk teori
The course is an introduction to debates and research that lie at the interface between Economics and Philosophy. It begins with a study of work conducted around the time of the French Revolution, when thinkers such as Condorcet tried to find democratic voting procedures that could aggregate voter preferences in a fair and rational way (spoiler alert: they discovered that this is extremely difficult). The course then follows the expansion of this debate into the general question of how to assess different welfare distributions as better or worse, from an impartial point of view (second spoiler: also extremely difficult). It examines different ways economists have proposed to measure inequality and philosophical discussions about whether, and if so, why, equality should be an ethical and political goal. Finally, it examines questions of justice between generations, including some particularily vexed questions that arise when one generation has to decide how numerous the next generation is going to be.
Topics thus include:
- Election systems
- Welfare economics
- Measures of inequality
- Distributive justice
- Population Ethics
Learning Outcome
Upon course completion, the student will have achieved the following learning outcome:
The student
- knows central issues and findings in social choice theory.
- knows central issues and findings in welfare economics.
- knows central issues and findings in population ethics.
- is familiar with key methods used in these fields.
- is familiar with selected classical texts in these fields.
The student
- can prove a selection of central results from social choice theory, welfare economics and population ethics, such as (the selection may vary from year to year):
- Condorcet’s jury theorem
- Condorcet’s paradox
- Arrows’ theorem
- The equivalence of the arithmetic definition and the geometric (Lorenz-curve) definition of the Gini coeficcient
- The Repugnant Conclusion
- Arrhenius’s impossibility proofs
- can critically discuss the real-world applicability of formal results such as those above.
- can critically assess views about just and unjust decision procedures, resource distributions and population policies for large societies.
- can orient themselves in the relevant literature, both primary and secondary, and follow standard professional norms of attribution and reference.
- can adjust their professional practice in response to feed-back and supervision.
The student
- can understand and critically assess formal work at the inferface between economics and philosophy.
- can explain central problems and debates that are at the inferface between economics and philosophy.
- can identify and discuss methodological issues that arise in attempts to formalize ethical issues.
- can discuss, orally and in written form, difficult questions in a clear and well-ordered manner.
- can plan and carry out independent academic work.
- is familiar with novel ideas and innovation processes at the inferface between economics and philosophy.
Two written assignments during the semester. They are graded as Pass or Fail, and the student must pass both assignments in order to take the exam.
4 hour on-site written exam, with questions selected from a list of potential exam questions, which is distributed at the beginning of the semester
| Form of assessment | Grading scale | Grouping | Duration of assessment | Support materials | Proportion | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Written examination with invigilation | ECTS - A-F | Individual | 4 Hour(s) |
| 100% |