Artikel

Discounting, beyond utilitarianism

Discounted utilitarianism and the Ramsey equation prevail in the debate on the discount rate on consumption. The utility discount rate is assumed to be constant and to reflect either the uncertainty about the existence of future generations or a pure preference for the present. The authors question the unique status of discounted utilitarianism and discuss the implications of alternative criteria addressing the key issues of equity in risky situations and variable population. To do so, they introduce a class of intertemporal social objectives, named Expected Prioritarian Equally Distributed Equivalent (EPEDE) criteria. The class is more flexible than discounted utilitarianism in terms of population ethics and it disentangles risk aversion and inequality aversion. The authors show that these social objectives imply interesting modifications of the Ramsey formula, and shed new light on Weitzman's "dismal theorem".

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Journal: Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal ; ISSN: 1864-6042 ; Volume: 9 ; Year: 2015 ; Issue: 2015-12 ; Pages: 1-52 ; Kiel: Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
Thema
discounted utilitarianism
social discounting

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Fleurbaey, Marc
Zuber, Stéphane
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
(wo)
Kiel
(wann)
2015

DOI
doi:10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2015-12
Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:43 MEZ

Datenpartner

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Objekttyp

  • Artikel

Beteiligte

  • Fleurbaey, Marc
  • Zuber, Stéphane
  • Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)

Entstanden

  • 2015

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