Social Welfare Functions

Here's an entertaining post on Social Welfare Functions written by my colleague Michael Sanders.

As Economics students, you will frequently hear others claim that the we economists assume all people to be machines, much like Spock. Generally speaking, these people will be dreadlocked Sociology students wearing God-awful hemp jumpers that stink of rolling tobacco, even if they don't smoke. These people misunderstand what Economics does.

Get a philosopher to state their normative assumptions about what is best for society and an economist will show you, using some maths, the implications of those assumptions. The Economics you learn at undergraduate level rarely has much to say about those assumptions themselves, we generally leave that normative stuff to others.

Most models you will learn are generally based on the "If X, then Y" principle. Don't worry too much about the X, the assumptions, worry about the analysis that takes us from X to Y, the equilibrium.