On the axiomatic approach to freedom as opportunity: a general characterization result

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide a different, somewhat more general, approach to the axiomatic ranking of opportunity sets in terms of freedom of choice. The opportunity ranking is defined axiomatically relative to some standard of freedom or theory of freedom. The paper then provides a general characterization result of the opportunity ranking in terms of the family of freedom standards.

Counting and multidimensional poverty measurement

“…Pattanaik and Xu (1990) focus on what Sen calls the intrinsic value of freedom and propose evaluating the freedom of a set in terms of the number of options that are present in the set. A significant literature has further explored and critiqued this theme (Pattanaik and Xu, 1990;Klemisch-Ahlert, 1993;Gravel, 1994Gravel, , 1998Xu, 1998, 2000;Bavetta and Del Seta, 2001;Gekker, 2001;Fleurbaey, 2002). In a recent survey of this literature, Foster (2007) used a vector representation of opportunity sets to reinterpret the Pattanaik and Xu result as an additive representation theorem.…”