Equity between overlapping generations

John Quiggin

No 152091, Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Papers from University of Queensland, School of Economics

Abstract: This note is a demonstration that, in the presence of overlapping generations and under standard conditions for a social welfare ordering (Pareto optimality, transitivity, independence), the only ordering consistent with utilitarianism for all people currently alive at any given point in time is one based on weighting all people equally, regardless of their date of birth. In particular, this implies that, under reasonable conditions, the appropriate choice for the pure rate of social time preference is equal to zero.

Keywords: Environmental Economics and Policy; Resource/Energy Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10
Date: 2008-06
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Equity Between Overlapping Generations (2012)
Working Paper: Equity between overlapping generations (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uqsers:152091

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.152091

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