Compensating the dead

Marc Fleurbaey, Marie-Louise Leroux and Gregory Ponthiere

Journal of Mathematical Economics, 2014, vol. 51, issue C, 28-41

Abstract: An early death is, undoubtedly, a serious disadvantage. However, the compensation of short-lived individuals has remained so far largely unexplored, probably because it appears infeasible. Indeed, short-lived agents can hardly be identified ex ante, and cannot be compensated ex post. We argue that, despite those difficulties, a compensation can be carried out by encouraging early consumption in the life cycle. In a model with heterogeneous preferences and longevities, we show how a specific social criterion can be derived from intuitive principles, and we study the corresponding optimal policy under various informational assumptions.

Keywords: Compensation; Longevity; Mortality; Fairness; Redistribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (67)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304406814000317
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Compensating the dead (2014)
Working Paper: Compensating the dead (2014)
Working Paper: Compensating the dead (2014)
Working Paper: Compensating The Dead (2011)
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:eee:mateco:v:51:y:2014:i:c:p:28-41

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmateco.2014.02.003

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Mathematical Economics is currently edited by Atsushi (A.) Kajii

More articles in Journal of Mathematical Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().