Measuring Social Welfare. An Introduction

The social welfare function (SWF) framework is a powerful tool for evaluating governmental policies in light of human well-being. The framework originates in theoretical welfare economics and is widely used in contemporary economic scholarship on a broad range of policy problems. "Measuring Social Welfare : An Introduction" provides an accessible yet rigorous overview of the SWF approach. The book engages both the economic literature on SWFs and philosophical scholarship regarding individual well-being and distributive justice.
It also clarifies the difference between the SWF approach and cost-benefit analysis (CBA), which uses money rather than an interpersonally comparable well-being measure as the scale for quantifying policy impacts. The book is written to be accessible to readers without much mathematical training, but is backed up by an extensive mathematical appendix.