Population Ethics and the Value of Life

Charles Blackorby, Walter Bossert and David Donaldson

Cahiers de recherche from Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques

Abstract: Public policies often involve choices of alternatives in which the size and the composition of the population may vary. Examples are the allocation of resources to prenatal care and the design of aid packages to developing countries. In order to assess the corresponding feasible choices on normative grounds, criteria for social evaluation that are capable of performing variable-population comparisons are required. We review several important axioms for welfarist population principles and discuss the link between individual well-being and the desirability of adding a new person to a given society.

Keywords: Polation Ethics; Neutrality; Critical Levels (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 D71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2003
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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http://hdl.handle.net/1866/491 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Population Ethics and the Value of Life (2005)
Working Paper: Population Ethics and the Value of Life (2003)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mtl:montde:2003-07

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