Sustainable development: equal treatment of the present and the future?

Graciela Chichilnisky

International Journal of Green Economics, 2010, vol. 4, issue 4, 346-359

Abstract: This article provides two axioms that capture the idea of sustainable development, and characterises the welfare criterion that they imply. It presents a formal theory of sustainable development, created by the author (Chichilnisky, 1996a, 1997). The axioms require that neither the present nor the future should play a dictatorial role in society's choices over time. Theorems 1 and 2 show that there exist sustainable preferences which satisfy these axioms and provide a full characterisation. Theorems 3 to 5 study a standard dynamical system representing the growth of a renewable-resource economy, give a 'turnpike' theorem, and exhibit the differences between sustainable optima and the ones according to discounted utilitarianism. (JEL 013)

Keywords: sustainable development; axioms; present-future equal treatment; intergenerational equity; green economics; long-run optimisation; present-future dictatorship; green golden rule; Weber-Fechner law; sustainable optimum; sustainability; renewable resources. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijgrec:v:4:y:2010:i:4:p:346-359

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