Seek Consistent With Equity Theory

Fairness is an extremely complicated concept. It differs from justice, equity or impartiality. Not only the equity of income distribution, but also the equity of our own feeling was involved during the discussion of fairness.Besides economists, many other scholars are also interested in this topic. Quite a number of researches on fairness were interdisciplinary. It was a necessary consequence. In this article, we shall try to use lots of theories such as general equilibrium theory, bargain theory, evolutionary game theory and experimental economics to analysis the essence of fairness.Furthermore, fairness is not just a pure theoretical concept. During the process of economy growth, fairness should be a key aim in decision makers' consideration. From Chinese experience on economy growth of last thirty years, we should be totally aware of the catastrophic consequence caused by lacking fairness. The application of fairness theory is indispensable for the social development, and so any discussion on fairness should be applied to the real market to check their feasibilities.So we have two interrelated goals. Firstly, we shall discuss the concept of fairness from different economics theories. Secondly, all the models or methods discussed in this thesis should be applied to the real Chinese markets.Before the theoretical analysis, it is necessary for us to survey the traditional understanding of fairness. From Plato to Marx, most ancient thinkers had discussed fairness. However, their perspectives were totally different from the nowadays mainstream viewpoints. This phenomenon indicates that the feeling of fairness is affected by the culture and the status of society.Harvard philosopher John Rawls published his masterpiece "A theory of Justice" in 1971. It is a milestone of the research of fairness. This book arouses the passion of a huge number of scholars to discuss those basic ethics concepts. Concepts, such as fairness, justice, efficiency, right, utility, uncertainty and etc., often tangles with each other. It is not an easy job to construct an integrated theoritical system to deal with all these concepts.Rawls's system had been challenged by many scholars from different standpoints. Of course, some critiques concerning law, political philosophy or metaphysics have overstepped the bound of this thesis. But two scholars had raised important questions related to the concept of fairness in their challenge to Rawls.One is Ronald Dworkin. Dworkin considered that, in order to pursue the distribution results of fairness, we should withdraw to a fairness start point. For lacking of information, it is hard to find the start point. But we can try to ensure everyone has equity resources when he enters the labor market. The other is A.K. Sen. Sen considered that Dworkin's methods still raised too much requirements to the policy makers which are hard to meet. By the experience from India, Sen advanced that the policy makers should pay more attention on ensure the primary ability of ordinary people. If people had the primary ability, they would have chanced to change their lives and pursue a more fair distribution scheme.Both Dworkin and Sen had given us great illumination to analysis the concept fairness. In this thesis, we used three different methods to construct frameworks concerning fairness.Firstly, we used general equilibrium theory to pursue a criterion of fairness. Many economists had pointed out that Envy-free may be a proper criterion of fairness. And Envy-free criterion was feasible only within the general equilibrium theory framework. We proved that, in our model, the aim of fairness and efficiency can coexist without confliction.Secondly, we used bargaining theory to analysis the implementation of fairness contract. Cooperation game theory had given us powerful tools to deal these problems. In the framework, rational person can achieve a fair contract through bargaining. If they did not satisfied with the contract, they can reject it to defend their own conserved utility.Thirdly, we use utilitarianism theory to analysis the concept of fairness. Although Rawls had raised severe critique to utilitarianism theory, many utilitarianism theoreticians such as John Harsanyi had made effective responses. Furthermore, both Dworkin and Sen's idea on fairness can be deal within the framework with more efficiency. Utilitarianism theory had its limitation on dealing with fairness, but it also gave us some significant insight.Last but not least, we had concluded ten points about the main ideas of the thesis. There are still many difficulties and dissidences on conceptual framework of fairness. The main contribution of this thesis is cleaning up the theme and pointing out some prospects on further research.