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A nostalgic retrospect on a debate on various aspects of welfare economics

Abstract About 50 years ago a lively discussion was started in the ‘Notes and Memoranda’ sections of the Economic Journal about the new welfare economics that had been initiated by Kaldor and Hicks 10 years earlier and was heavily criticized by Little in 1950. Altogether 18 Notes appeared dealing with questions of definition, of limitations, of practical relevance and theoretical details. This paper gives an overview of this discussion and presents it as a methodological approach of the past which that declined as a consequence of the spread of the referee process.