Longer life, higher welfare?

Michael Grimm and Kenneth Harttgen

Oxford Economic Papers, 2008, vol. 60, issue 2, pages 193-211

Abstract: Whereas life expectancy continues to increase in most industrialized countries, many developing and transition countries are today confronted with decreases in life expectancy. Usual measures employed to compare welfare over time and space fail to deal with such demographic change and may lead to the so-called 'repugnant conclusion' that lower life expectancy involves higher welfare per capita. We illustrate this type of transmission channel using various welfare criteria and reference populations. We also consider feed-back effects from the demography on the economy using a neo-classical growth model. We show that the 'repugnant conclusion' can be avoided if we choose a lifetime welfare measure instead of a period (or snapshot) welfare measure. All concepts are illustrated empirically using a small sample of developed and developing countries. Copyright 2008 , Oxford University Press.

Date: 2008
View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpm025 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Longer Life, Higher Welfare? (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:60:y:2008:i:2:p:193-211

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.oup.co.uk/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Economic Papers is edited by A. Banerjee and James Forder

More articles in Oxford Economic Papers from Oxford University Press
Address: Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().