Infinite Population Utilitarian Criteria

Geir Asheim, Kohei Kamaga and Stéphane Zuber

No 9576, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We examine utilitarian criteria for evaluating profiles of wellbeing among infinitely many individuals. Motivated by the non-existence of a natural 1-to-1 correspondence between people when alternatives have different population structures, with a different number of people in each generation, we impose equal treatment in the form of Strong Anonymity. We show how a novel criterion, Strongly Anonymous Utilitarianism, can be characterized by combining Strong Anonymity with other regularity axioms (Monotonicity, Finite Completeness, and continuity axioms) as well as axioms of equity, sensitivity, separability, and population ethics. We relate it to other strongly anonymous utilitarian criteria and demonstrate its applicability by showing how it leads to an efficient and sustainable stream in the Ramsey model.

Keywords: utilitarianism; intergenerational equity; population ethics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D71 Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-mic and nep-upt
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Infinite population utilitarian criteria (2022)
Working Paper: Infinite population utilitarian criteria (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9576

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