Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy?

Marie-Louise Leroux and Gregory Ponthiere

Economic Modelling, 2013, vol. 30, issue C, 888-899

Abstract: In the context of unequal deterministic longevities, classical utilitarianism exhibits, under time-additive individual preferences, a counterintuitive tendency to redistribute resources from short-lived agents towards long-lived agents, against any intuition for compensation. We examine the robustness of that result to the introduction of risky lifetime, and to a broader class of individual preferences. It is shown that classical utilitarianism remains unable to provide, in that broader framework, a general redistribution towards the short-lived. Then, we propose a remedy, which consists in imputing, when solving the social planner's allocation problem, the consumption equivalent of a long life to the consumption of long-lived agents. This compensation-constrained utilitarianism is shown to reduce welfare inequalities across agents with unequal lifetimes.

Keywords: Utilitarianism; Differential longevity; Compensation; Redistribution; Consumption equivalent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I12 I18 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: a remedy? (2013)
Working Paper: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy? (2013)
Working Paper: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy? (2013)
Working Paper: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy? (2010)
Working Paper: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy? (2009)
Working Paper: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy? (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:30:y:2013:i:c:p:888-899

DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2012.10.006

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