Generous Sustainability

Reyer Gerlagh

Ecological Economics, 2017, vol. 136, issue C, 94-100

Abstract: I define “generous sustainability” as a combination of two conditions: neither instantaneous maximin utility nor attainable maximin utility should decrease over time. I provide a formal definition and study applications to a Climate Economy with bounded and with unbounded growth. Generosity is shown to require that GHG emissions are limited to levels that do not cause irreversible system damages if some group of people systematically value these systems.

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainable development; Intergenerational distribution; Growth; Climate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D90 Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Generous Sustainability (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:136:y:2017:i:c:p:94-100

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.02.012

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