Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population

Dean Spears () and Stéphane Zuber
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Dean Spears: University of Texas at Austin

Social Choice and Welfare, 2023, vol. 61, issue 1, No 5, 129 pages

Abstract: Abstract Utilitarianism is the most prominent social welfare function in economics. We present three new axiomatic characterizations of utilitarian (that is, additively-separable) social welfare functions in a setting where there is risk over both population size and individuals’ welfares. We first show that, given uncontroversial basic axioms, Blackorby et al.’s (J Popul Econ 11:1–20, 1998) Expected Critical-Level Generalized Utilitarianism is equivalent to a new axiom holding that it is better to allocate higher utility-conditional-on-existence to possible people who have a higher probability of existence. The other two characterizations extend and clarify classic axiomatizations of utilitarianism from settings with either social risk or variable-population, considered alone.

Date: 2023
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Working Paper: Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population (2022)
Working Paper: Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population (2022)
Working Paper: Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population (2022)
Working Paper: Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population (2021)
Working Paper: Foundations of utilitarianism under risk and variable population (2021)
Working Paper: Foundations of Utilitarianism under Risk and Variable Population (2021)
Working Paper: Foundations of utilitatianism under risk and variable population (2021)
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DOI: 10.1007/s00355-022-01440-4

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