Proposes a theory of social welfare that encapsulates fairness principles in the definition of social preferences.

Preface; Introduction; Part I. Basics: 1. A contribution to welfare economics; 2. Efficiency versus equality; 3. Priority to the worst-off; 4. The informational basis of social orderings; Part II. Distribution: 5. Fair distribution of divisible goods: two approaches; 6. Specific domains; 7. Extensions; Part III. Production: 8. Public good; 9. Private good; 10. Unequal skills; 11. Income taxation; Conclusions; Proofs.

Marc Fleurbaey is a Research Director of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and serves on the staff of CERSES, the joint research entity of the CNRS and the Université Paris Descartes. He first worked at INSEE, taught subsequently at the Universities of Cergy-Pontoise and Pau, and as of 2011 is a professor at Princeton University. Professor Fleurbaey is a research associate at CORE at the Université Catholique de Louvain, at Sciences-Po in Paris, and at IDEP in Marseilles, and a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. He is a former editor of the journal Economics and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press) and is currently a managing editor of Social Choice and Welfare. He is the author, editor or coeditor of seven books, including Fairness, Responsibility, and Welfare (2008) and Justice, Political Liberalism, and Utilitarianism: Themes from Harsanyi and Rawls (with Maurice Salles and John Weymark, Cambridge University Press, 2008). His papers on normative and public economics have appeared in leading journals such as Econometrica the Journal of Political Economy and the Journal of Economic Theory.