Kaldor-Hicks efficiency extends Pareto logic to permit welfare comparisons where gainers could hypothetically compensate losers, enabling policy judgments without interpersonal utility comparisons.

?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.

1 reason for

1 reason against

Reasons For

1 perspective

Reason for

1 perspective

Reason against

Based on where you are in your exploration

Interpersonal utility comparisons(Distinguished into comparisons of levels vs. differences in the literature): Comparisons of utility levels or utility differences across distinct individuals, used to ground distributive evaluations such as egalitarianism and utilitarianism.
Kaldor-Hicks efficiency(as used in economics and policy evaluation): A way to judge whether a policy is good by checking if the people who benefit could theoretically give money to those who lose and still come out ahead overall.
Pareto efficiency (or Pareto optimality)(as used in economics): A situation where you can't make anyone better off without making someone else worse off; named after economist Vilfredo Pareto.
Pareto logic(as used in economics and philosophy): The reasoning system based on Pareto efficiency—the idea that a change is only good if it helps some people without hurting anyone.
hypothetically(in the philosophical statement): Based on an imagined or assumed situation, rather than what's actually true in real life.
welfare(Critique of Stein's strict health-welfare correlation): A subjective notion of well-being that is affected by multiple domains, not health alone.

2 topics