When Does Social Discounting Favor the Young? Welfare Comparisons in Heterogeneous Economies

Ioan Sebastian Buhai

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: Social discounting is often interpreted as ranking young and old agents. In a heterogeneous economy, however, a social discount schedule does not determine a unique age ranking. The sign can reverse with the states being compared and may remain unidentified when common support is disconnected. I characterize when local young-old comparisons isolate age-related social priority rather than differences in private marginal values, constraints, or units. A coherent system of normalized welfare weights exists if and only if every supported path between the same states implies the same ratio. In a calibrated life-cycle economy, every retained local comparison favors the young, yet the aggregate ranking favors the old under one component normalization, favors the young on the largest shared component, and is unidentified when component scales are unrestricted.

Date: 2026-06, Revised 2026-07
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