Longevity, Growth and Intergenerational Equity - The Deterministic Case

Challenges raised by ageing (increasing longevity) have prompted policy debates featuring policy proposals justified by reference to some notion of intergenerational equity. However, very different policies ranging from pre-savings to indexation of retirement ages have been justified in this way. We develop an overlapping generations model in continuous time which encompasses different generations with different mortality rates and thus longevity. Allowing for trend increases in both longevity and productivity, we address the issue of intergenerational equity under a utilitarian criterion when future generations are better off in terms of both material and non-material well being. Increases in productivity and longevity are shown to have very different implications for intergenerational distribution.

Intergenerational equity and stationarity

We consider quasi-orderings of infinite utility streams satisfying the strong Pareto axiom (i.e., Paretian quasi-orderings) and study the question of how strong a notion of intergenerational equity one can impose on these quasi-orderings without generating an impossibility theorem. Building on a result by Mitra and Basu (2007), we first show that there exist many possible extensions of the finite anonymity axiom that are satisfied by some Paretian quasiordering. Then we study how the additional requirement of stationarity `a la Koopmans (1960) affects this result. After proving a possibility theorem for this case, we demonstrate that stationarityimposes strong restrictions on the extendability of the finite anonymity axiom.

A comment on "Intergenerational equity: sup, inf, lim sup, and lim inf"

We reexamine the analysis of Chambers (Social Choice and Welfare, 2009), that produces a characterization of a family of social welfare functions in the context of intergenerational equity: namely, those that coincide with either the sup, inf, lim sup, or lim inf rule. Reinforcement, ordinal covariance, and monotonicity jointly identify such class of rules. We show that the addition of a suitable axiom to this three properties permits to characterize each particular rule. A discussion of the respective distinctive properties is provided.Social welfare function; Intergenerational equity; Lim sup ; Lim inf

Inequality averse criteria for evaluating infinite utility streams: The impossibility of Weak Pareto

This paper investigates ethical aggregation of infinite utility streams by representable social welfare relations. We prove that the Hammond Equity postulate and other variations of it like the Pigou-Dalton transfer principle are incompatible with positive responsiveness to welfare improvements by every generation. The case of Hammond Equity for the Future is investigated too.Social welfare function; Equity; Inequality aversion; Pareto axiom; Intergenerational justice

Decomposing the social discount rate

Recent modelling of the costs and benefits of climate change has renewed debate surrounding assumptions regarding the social discount rate in analysing the impacts of environmental change. Previous literature segments the social discount rate into being influenced by two key factors; the rate of pure time preference and the elasticity of marginal utility of future consumption. These components of the social discount rate reinforce the linkages between the choice of social discount rate and intergenerational distribution. In an extension of previous work by the author on intergenerational distributional preferences, this paper discusses the relationship between intergenerational equity and the social discount rate. The work has significant policy implications given the sensitivity of Cost Benefit Analysis outcomes to assumptions regarding the social discount rate.Intergenerational equity, Social discount rate, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Climate Change, Intergenerational Equity, and International Law

Climate change is an inherently intergenerational problem with extremely serious implications for equity between ourselves and future generations and among communities in the present and the future. More than twenty years ago I wrote an article entitled Climate Change, Intergenerational Equity and International Law. The basic issues and the analysis remain the same, though a number of international agreements relevant to climate change have been concluded since then

Double Dividend with Involuntary Unemployment: Efficiency and Intergenerational Equity

This paper analyzes the double dividend and distributional issues within an overlapping generations models framework with involuntary unemployment. We characterize the necessary conditions for the obtention of a double dividend when the revenue of the environmental tax is recycled by a variation of the labor tax rate. We show that an employment dividend may occur without any efficiency dividend and that the young generation is not always harmed by the fiscal reform, even without any intergenerational transfers. Therefore, three dividends (environmental, efficiency and intergenerational equity) can simultaneously occur.Environmental tax; Intergenerational equity; Unemployment; Double dividend

Can intergenerational equity be operationalized?

A long Utilitarian tradition has the ideal of equal regard for all individuals, both those now living and those yet to be born. The literature formalizes this ideal as asking for a preference relation on the space of infinite utility streams that is complete, transitive, invariant to finite permutations, and respects the Pareto ordering; an ethical preference relation, for short. This paper argues that operationalizing this ideal is problematic. Most simply, every ethical preference relation has the property that almost all (in the sense of outer measure) pairs of utility streams are indifferent. Even if we abandon completeness and respect for the Pareto ordering, every irreflexive preference relation that is invariant to finite permutations has the property that almost all pairs of utility streams are incomparable (not strictly ranked). Moreover, no ethical preference relation can be measurable. As a consequence, the existence of an ethical preference relation is independent of the axioms used in almost all of formal economics and all of classical analysis. Finally, even if an ethical preference relation exists, it cannot be "explicitly described." These results have implications for game theory, for macroeconomics, and for economic development.Intergenerational equity, infinite utility streams, long run averages, overtaking criterion, Utilitarianism

Pigford, Shrader-Frechette & the NRC Report on Yucca Mountain: Comment

Dr. Okrent raises several questions related to, e.g., the uneven application of the goal of intergenerational equity

Impatience and Intergenerational Equity in a Model of Sustainable Growth

We argue that intergenerational neutrality has been prematurely excluded from the dialogue on sustainable growth. By incorporating Burton’s distinction between intragenerational and intergenerational discounting into a model suitable for analyzing sustainability issues, we are able to accommodate some of the underlying concerns. We show that in an economy with a renewable resource, eschewing intergenerational discounting leads to the implication of a sustained growth path, without the necessity of a sustainability constraint. We find that green net national product remains constant along the optimal approach path to golden rule consumption. This avoids the paradox that maximizing sustainable income leads to unsustained consumption and income.Sustainable development, intergenerational equity, intra-generational discounting, renewable resources, green net national product