On alternative views of welfare

 

 

Two traditions in economics 

I've been teaching a course on Public Policy, and had to deal with conventional manuals, which tend to be essentially micro and conventional in their approach. They all start from Pareto and market/government failure dichotomies. Classical, objective and materialistic conceptions of the public good are completely excluded. This short handout was used just to redress some of the problems of teaching from conventional textbooks. I also discuss extensively macro issues, of course.