Hi all,
Currently reading David Adler's text on distributional weights in benefit-cost analysis (
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/3110/), I cannot manage to fully grasp the definition of the anonymity axiom.
The isoelastic/Atkinson social welfare function (SWF) allows for an inequality aversion parameter; greater weight is put on changes affecting worse-off individuals. Adler states that this function satisfies the anonymity/impartiality axiom, defined here as "meaning indifference between any given utility vectora and all rearrangements of component numbers". I understand this, broadly, as meaning that the levels of utility, and not the persons enjoying those levels, are what counts.
However, I can't manage to reconcile this with the use of an inequality aversion parameter, which, by definition, treats individuals differently.
What am I missing ?
Many thanks.
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