Abstract
From an ethical perspective intergenerational discounting often is justified by the desire to avoid distributions of welfare that are immoderately unbalanced in favor of future generations. In this paper it is shown in a two-generation framework that for productive economies it is well possible to use undiscounted utilitarianism instead in order to make ethically acceptable choices on intergenerational distributions. When intergenerational discounting is nevertheless used as a pragmatic device it also follows from our approach that time-inconsistency might no longer be an important problem.
Article Footnote
Acknowledgements: I have received many helpful comments from Geir Asheim and the seminar participants at ZEW Mannheim, especially from Stef Proost.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Asheim, G. (2000), Green National Accounting: Why and How?, Environment and Development Economics 5, 25–48.
Asheim, G. and W. Buchholz (2000), The Malleability of Undiscounted Utilitarianism as a Criterion of Intergenerational Justice,CES ifo Working Paper, No. 392, München (To appear in a revised version in Economica).
Asheim, G., W. Buchholz, and B. Tungodden (2001), Justifying Sustainability, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 41, 252–268.
Atkinson, A. (1970), On the Measurement of Inequality, Journal of Economic Theory 2, 244–263.
Böhm-Bawerk, E. von (1971), The Positive Theory of Capital, New York (Reprint of the First English Edition 1891).
Buchholz, W. (1997), Intergenerational Equity, in: Zylicz, T. (Ed.), Ecological Economics. A Volume in the Series: A Sustainable Baltic Region, Uppsala.
Dalton, H. (1920), Measurement of the Inequality of Incomes, Economic Journal 30, 348–361.
Dasgupta, P. and G. Heal (1979), Economic Theory and Exhaustible Resources, Cambridge, U.K.
Harrod, R.F. (1948), Towards a Dynamic Economy, London. Heal, G. (1998), Valuing the Future, New York.
Nordhaus, W. (1999), Discounting and Public Policies that Affect the Distant Future, in: Portney, P.R. and J.P. Weyant (Eds.), Discounting and Intergenerational Equity, Washington, D.C.
Pezzey, J. and C. Withagen (1998), The Rise, Fall and Sustainability of Capital-Resource Economies, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 100, 513–527.
Pigou, A.C. (1912), Wealth and Welfare, London.
Pigou, A.C. (1920), The Economics of Welfare, London.
Rawls, J. (1999), A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition, Oxford (First Edition 1971).
Solow, R. (1974), Intergenerational Equity and Exhaustible Resources, Review of Economic Studies, Symposium.
Weitzman, M. (2001), Gamma Discounting, American Economic Review 91, 260–271.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Buchholz, W. (2003). Balancing the Interests of the Present and the Future. In: Böhringer, C., Löschel, A. (eds) Empirical Modeling of the Economy and the Environment. ZEW Economic Studies, vol 20. Physica, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-57415-3_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-57415-3_14
Publisher Name: Physica, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-7908-0078-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-57415-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive