Monotonicity and Independence Axioms for Quasi-linear Social Choice Problems

Abstract

We consider quasi-linear social choice problems. A society must choose one among a finite number of costless public decisions; money is available to perform side payments; each agent has quasi-linear preferences. We are interested in determining what public decision should be chosen and what side payments among agents should be performed. By formulating monotonicity and independence axioms relating various changes in the set of public decision, we characterize egalitarianism.