Climate Policy with Bentham-Rawls Preferences

Richard Tol

Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School

Abstract: A Bentham-Rawls welfare function is the weighted sum of the net present welfare (Bentham) and the welfare of the worst-off generation (Rawls). If utility is non-decreasing over time, optimal climate policy is more stringent in the near-term under Bentham preferences than under Bentham-Rawls preferences. If utility is decreasing, Bentham-Rawls abatement is higher. If there is a chance of decreasing utility, Bentham-Rawls optimal climate policy is probably less stringent than Bentham policy.

Keywords: climate policy; social cost of carbon; Bentham-Rawls preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-res
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Climate policy with Bentham–Rawls preferences (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sus:susewp:3812

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