Intergenerational justice when future worlds are uncertain

Mostra el registre complet Registre parcial de l'ítem

• dc.contributor.author Llavador, Humbertoca
• dc.contributor.author Roemer, John E.ca
• dc.contributor.author Silvestre, Joaquimca
• dc.contributor.other Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Departament d'Economia i Empresa
• dc.date.accessioned 2017-07-26T12:07:50Z
• dc.date.available 2017-07-26T12:07:50Z
• dc.date.issued 2009-10-01
• dc.date.modified 2017-07-23T02:12:49Z
• dc.description.abstract Let there be a positive (exogenous) probability that, at each date, the human species will disappear. We postulate an Ethical Observer (EO) who maximizes intertemporal welfare under this uncertainty, with expected-utility preferences. Various social welfare criteria entail alternative von Neumann- Morgenstern utility functions for the EO: utilitarian, Rawlsian, and an extension of the latter that corrects for the size of population. Our analysis covers, first, a cake-eating economy (without production), where the utilitarian and Rawlsian recommend the same allocation. Second, a productive economy with education and capital, where it turns out that the recommendations of the two EOs are in general different. But when the utilitarian program diverges, then we prove it is optimal for the extended Rawlsian to ignore the uncertainty concerning the possible disappearance of the human species in the future. We conclude by discussing the implications for intergenerational welfare maximization in the presence of global warming.
• dc.format.mimetype application/pdfca
• dc.identifier https://econ-papers.upf.edu/ca/paper.php?id=1178
• dc.identifier.citation Forthcoming in Journal of Mathematical Economics.
• dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/6073
• dc.language.iso eng
• dc.relation.ispartofseries Economics and Business Working Papers Series; 1178
• dc.rights L'accés als continguts d'aquest document queda condicionat a l'acceptació de les condicions d'ús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons
• dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• dc.rights.uri http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/
• dc.subject.keyword discounted utilitarianism
• dc.subject.keyword rawlsian
• dc.subject.keyword sustainability
• dc.subject.keyword maximin
• dc.subject.keyword uncertainty
• dc.subject.keyword expected utility
• dc.subject.keyword von neumann-morgenstern
• dc.subject.keyword dynamic welfare maximization.
• dc.subject.keyword Microeconomics
• dc.subject.keyword Labour, Public, Development and Health Economics
• dc.title Intergenerational justice when future worlds are uncertainca
• dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaper