Exploring infinite population utilitarianism under strong anonymity

Geir Asheim, Kohei Kamaga and Stéphane Zuber ()
Additional contact information
Stéphane Zuber: Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne and CNRS, Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne

Economic Theory, 2025, vol. 80, issue 1, No 2, 39-85

Abstract: Abstract We examine utilitarian criteria for evaluating profiles of well-being 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 demonstrate how a novel criterion, Strongly Anonymous Utilitarianism, can be applied in the Ramsey model, leading to an efficient and sustainable stream. We show how the criterion is the result of combining Strong Anonymity with other regularity axioms (Monotonicity, Finite Completeness, and continuity axioms) as well as axioms of equity, population ethics, sensitivity, and separability. We relate it to other strongly anonymous utilitarian criteria.

Keywords: Utilitarianism; Intergenerational equity; Population ethics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D71 Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00199-024-01620-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
Working Paper: Exploring infinite population utilitarianism under strong anonymity (2024)
Working Paper: Exploring infinite population utilitarianism under strong anonymity (2024)
Working Paper: Exploring infinite population utilitarianism under strong anonymity (2024)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:joecth:v:80:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s00199-024-01620-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... eory/journal/199/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00199-024-01620-6

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Theory is currently edited by Nichoals Yanneils

More articles in Economic Theory from Springer, Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().