QUESTIONS
For the final examination (Friday, 26 June, 8:00-10:00) you will be presented with twelve of the following eighteen questions of which you are to select eight to answer. For each an adequate answer should require no more than 250 (well chosen) words. It is suggested that you collaborate in preparing your prospective answers-solve this collective-action problem!-but individually construct detailed outlines beforehand. Please write your exam in a greenbook. This is a closed-book, closed-notes, closed-computer exam.
1) Explain what is referred to as ‘Walrasian economics', its developed role in economic theory and pedagogy, and its likely prospects for providing satisfactory explanation of economic realities.
2) With an illustrating example, explain Allais's problem. What is its significance for the theory of choice?
3) Describe and evaluate classical utilitarianism.
4) Perhaps most if not all economists at least implicitly identify preference satisfaction with being better off and, moreover, believe it is a good thing if people are better off. Explain and evaluate the claim that Pareto improvements are moral improvements and that Pareto efficient outcomes are morally desirable?
5) State Rawls's proposed principles of justice and explain their priority ordering.
6) Describe Rawls's conception of "the original position" and explain its intended purpose in his theory. Evaluate how well that purpose is served.
7) Explain, making use of a diagram, Rawls's Difference Principle and contrast it with other principles of distribution. Does satisfaction of the Difference Principle entail Pareto efficient distribution?
8) Briefly describe Nozick's entitlement theory of justice. Then summarize and evaluate Arrow's and Varian's critiques of Nozick's proposal.
9) Explain Varian's conception of a fair distribution. How would such such a distribution compare to one that satisfying Rawls's Difference Principle?
10) Explain and evaluate Harsanyi's critique of Rawls's theory of justice.
11) Explain and evaluate Cooter's argument that Rawls's lexical ordering of his principles of justice is "good economics."
12) Elaborate and evaluate the view that some version of the Pareto principle provides a sufficient basis for a normative theory of distribution.
13) Describe the basic tenets of benefit-cost analysis. Evaluate to what degree it provides an acceptable approach to comparing alternative public policies.
14) Describe Arrow's (1951) impossibility theorem and its significance for social choice theory. Does the theorem undermine classical utilitarianism? Explain.
15) Describe Sen's (1970) impossibility theorem and relate it to Arrow's. Does it undermine Rawls' theory of justice? Explain.
16) Pogge claims that Rawls fails to provide a satisfactory theory of global justice. What is his argument? What are its strengths and weaknesses?
17) What is the so-called Clone Argument ("Morally Arbitrary Economic Advantage") and what, if anything, does it show.
18) Explain the economics of the problem of intergenerational equity and delineate and evaluate at least one proposal for a just savings rate.
Extra Credit: On the first day of the course I told you (with a straight face, I think) that there would be an in-class surprise quiz. I lied. Any insight now into Quine's "...Supposed Antinomy"?