Foundations of utilitatianism under risk and variable population

Dean Spears () and Stéphane Zuber
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Dean Spears: University of Texas at Austin - USA, Indian Statistical Institute Delhi Centre - India, IZA - Germany, IFFS - Sweden, https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/economics/

Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne from Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne

Abstract: Utilitarianism is the most prominent family of social welfare functions. We present three new axiomatic characterizations of utilitarian (that is, additively separable) social welfare functions in a setting where there is risk over both population size and the welfares of individuals. First, we show that, given uncontroversial basic axioms, Blackorby et al.'s (1998) Expected Critical-Level Generalized Utilitarianism (ECLGU) is equivalent to a new axiom holding that it is better to allocate higher utility-conditional-on-existence to possible people who have a higher probability of existence. The other two novel characterizations extend classic axiomatizations of utilitarianism from settings with either social risk or variable-population, considered alone. By considering both social risk and variable population together, we clarify the fundamental normative considerations underlying utilitarian policy evaluation

Keywords: Social risk; population ethics; utilitarianism; expected critical-level generalized utilitarianism; prioritarianism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D81 J10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2021-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-isf and nep-upt
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http://mse.univ-paris1.fr/pub/mse/CES2021/21017.pdf (application/pdf)
https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-03287583

Related works:
Journal Article: Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population (2023)
Working Paper: Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population (2022)
Working Paper: Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population (2022)
Working Paper: Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population (2022)
Working Paper: Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population (2021)
Working Paper: Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population (2021)
Working Paper: Foundations of Utilitarianism under Risk and Variable Population (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mse:cesdoc:21017

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