Intergenerational Discounting and Inequality
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Abstract:
We study all theories of justice that disentangle ethical views on intergenerational discounting and intergenerational inequality. Each "modular" social welfare function is uniquely identified by a time-discounting function--capturing attitudes toward time--and an aggregator function--capturing attitudes toward inequality. Our axiomatic characterization identifies the properties and establishes the limits of disentangling discounting and inequality. Our theories include as special cases the most common welfare criteria adopted in the literature, while uncovering unexplored (and yet tractable) families of alternative criteria.
Bio:
I am an Associate professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Copenhagen. I am also Co-director of the Environmental Economics Group and a Distinguished affiliate member of the CESifo Research. My research and teaching interests are primarily within resource and environmental economics. I am also interested in welfare economics and game theory. I hold a PhD in economics from the University of Oslo and was previously Research fellow at Heidelberg University.
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