Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy?

Gregory Ponthiere and Marie-Louise Leroux

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Abstract: Classical utilitarianism, if coupled with standard assumptions such as the expected utility hypothesis and additive lifetime welfare, has the undesirable corollary to recommend a redistribution of resources from short-lived to long-lived agents, against any intuition of compensation. This paper proposes a remedy to that undesirable property of utilitarianism. This remedy consists in imputing, when solving the social planner's problem, the consumption equivalent of a long life to the consumption of long-lived agents. Provided the consumption equivalent is positive, the modified first-best problem exhibits a compensation of short-lived agents, under the form of a higher consumption. Then, in a general framework where agents differ in survival prospects, we compare the ex ante remedy (compensating agents with a lower life expectancy) and the ex post remedy (compensating short-lived agents), and show their incompatibility.

Keywords: utilitarisme; longévité différentielle; équivalent consommation; utilitarianism; differential longevity; compensation; redistribution; consumption equivalent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-07
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00566858v1
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Related works:
Journal Article: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy? (2013)
Working Paper: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: a remedy? (2013)
Working Paper: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy? (2013)
Working Paper: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy? (2013)
Working Paper: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy? (2010)
Working Paper: Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy? (2009)
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