Fairness and Utility in Tort Theory

Supramonetary Values , The Value Of Life , And The Utility Theory Meanings Of Tort Recovery

Economists often take it for granted that any finite utility value to an individual can always be measured by a dollar equivalent. This presumption has led to the error of assuming that the utility value of life of an individual is ordinarily infinite. In this paper, we offer both logical proof and practical demonstration that the utility value of life of an individual cannot be infinite. At th...

Epstein's Tort Theory: a Critique

IN three articles published in this journal between 1973 and 1975, my colleague Professor Richard Epstein set forth an ambitious normative theory of tort law.' Among the distinctive features of this theory were the author's insistence that strict liability based on causal principles should be the prima facie standard of liability, that notions of liberty rather than of economic efficiency shoul...

Generalized Utility Describing Cooperation and Fairness

In this paper we show that for the case of two subjects the inequity-aversion utility coincides with the social-welfare utility that weights egoistic preferences, Hick optimality and maximin fairness. We also compare the generalizations of the inequity-aversion and social-welfare utilities to the case of more than two players and show that these two utilities are generalized in different ways. ...

A New Fairness Index and Novel Approach for QoS-Aware Resource Allocation in LTE Networks Based on Utility Functions

Resource allocation techniques have recently appeared as a widely recognized feature in LTE networks. Most of existing approaches in resource allocation focus on maximizing network’s utility functions. The great potential of utility function in improving resource allocation and enhancing fairness and mean opinion score (MOS) indexes has attracted large efforts over the last few years. In this p...

A Liberal Theory of Social Welfare: Fairness, Utility, and the Pareto Principle