The Anatomy of Welfare

The Anatomy of Welfare Prasanta K Pattanaik granted. For example, he cites several legislative measures (e g, compulsory education, tax on alcohol, subsidised libraries) which can be interpreted as being based on the notion that the individual is not always the best judge of his own welfare. On wishes that he had gone a little deeper into this question for the meaning of the proposition that the individual is the best judge of his own welfare is not quite obvious and there can be several interpretations of the proposition. At a more superficial level it may also be noted that many of the legislative measures cited by him can be given an alternative rationalisation in terms of the existence of externalities. However, in the over-Paretian world of welfare economics Nath deserves our gratitude for emphasising the limitations of the Pare- tian system and its major product