Compensating the dead? Yes we can!

Marc Fleurbaey, Marie-Louise Leroux and Gregory Ponthiere

No 2010066, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: An early death is, undoubtedly, a serious disadvantage. However, the compensation of short-lived individuals has remained so far largely unexplored, probably because it appears infeasible. Indeed, short-lived agents can hardly be identified ex ante, and cannot be compensated ex post. We argue that, despite the above difficulties, a compensation can be carried out by encouraging early consumption in the life cycle. In a model with heterogeneous preferences and longevities, we show how a specific social criterion can be derived from intuitive principles, and we study the corresponding optimal policy under various informational assumptions. We also study the robustness of our solution to alternative types of preferences and savings policies.

Keywords: compensation; longevity; mortality; fairness; redistribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D71 I18 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-10-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Compensating the dead? Yes we can! (2010)
Working Paper: Compensating the dead? Yes we can! (2010)
Working Paper: Compensating the dead? Yes we can! (2010)
Working Paper: Compensating the Dead? Yes we can! (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2010066

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