Transfer principles and relative inequality aversion a majorization approach

Abstract This paper characterizes two preorders over vectors, representing here income distributions, which, for the case of an order-preserving additive welfare function W =∑ 1 n u ( x i ), correspond to the increasing concave functions u which are more concave than u ( x )=ln x and than u ( x )=−1/ x , respectively. We provide a characterization of those W functions that is quite distinct from the one recently provided by Fleurbaey and Michel, Mathematical Social Sciences , 2001. The two sets of results are shown to be complementary.