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Uncertainty and Pareto efficient policies

Economics Asked on July 11, 2021

There are two economic agents $iin {1,2}$ with state dependent utility $u_{is}=-(x-b_{is})^2$ where $xin R$ and $b_{is}in R$ is bliss point of $i$ in state $sin{1,2}$. Assume $b_{1s}lt b_{2s}$ for $forall sin{1,2}$. State $sin{1,2}$ occurs with probability $pi_{s}$. We denote $U_i(x_1,x_2)=pi_1u_{i1}(x_1)+pi_2u_{i2}(x_2)$.

Ex-post Pareto efficient policies in state 1 and 2, $x_1^*$ and $x_2^*$ respectively, I found them to be as follows:

Any policy in $[b_{11},b_{21}]$ is ex- post Pareto efficient in state 1 and any policy not in $[b_{11},b_{21}]$ is ex-post Pareto inefficient in state 1. Hence $x_1^* = z$, where $z$ is any $zin [b_{11}, b_{21}].$ By similar arguments $x_2^* = z$, where $z$ is any $zin[b_{12}, b_{22}].$

But how would we characterize ex-ante Pareto efficient policy pairs, ${x_1^*,x_2^*}?$

One Answer

Pareto efficient allocations can be found by maximizing a weighted average of the utilities of the agents. Let $lambda$ be the Pareto weight for agent 1 and $1 - lambda$ the weight for agent 2 (where $lambda in [0,1]$). This then gives the following problem: $$ max_{x_1, x_2} -lambda left[pi_1(x_1 - b_{11})^2 + pi_2(x_2 - b_{12})^2right] - (1-lambda)left[ pi_1 (x_1 - b_{21})^2 + pi_2 (x_2 - b_{22})^2right]. $$ The first order conditions with respect to $x_1$ and $x_2$ give: $$ lambda pi_1 2(x_1 - b_{11}) + (1-lambda) pi_1 2(x_1 - b_{21}) = 0 lambda pi_2 2(x_2 - b_{21}) + (1-lambda) pi_2 2(x_2 - b_{22}) = 0. $$

Simplifying gives: $$ x_1 = lambda b_{11} + (1-lambda) b_{21}, x_2 = lambda b_{21} + (1-lambda) b_{22}. $$ So $x_1$ and $x_2$ are weighted averages of the bliss points.

Answered by tdm on July 11, 2021

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