Intergenerational Population EthicsPaolo Piacquadio
1. Dezember 2022
Paolo Piacquadio (University of St Gallen) presents his project Intergenerational Population Ethics in our Microeconomics Research Seminar @VMP5, Room 0079, on Thursday, December 01, 5:15-6:45 PM.
Abstract: In less than half a century, the world's human population has doubled in size to the current 8 billion. Yet, despite the importance of population change for growth, resource scarcity, and climate change, there is no “reasonable” welfare criterion to assess alternatives with different number of individuals. We reexamine the evaluation of intergenerational allocations with endogenous population dynamics. Our proposal identifies a new balance between the well-being and the size of generations, obtained by respecting the fertility preferences of parents. The axiomatic characterization singles out a simple and intuitive family of recursive welfare criteria, which generalize discounted utilitarianism and avoid the most controversial implications of existing criteria.