David de la Croix () (Department of Economics and CORE, Université Catholique de Louvain) Axel Gosseries () (FNRS & Hoover Chair, Université Catholique de Louvain)
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Tradable permits are now widely used to control pollution. We investigate the implications of setting up such a system in another area – population control –, either domestically or at the global level. We first generalize the framework with both tradable procreation allowances and tradable procreation exemptions, in order to tackle both over- and under-population problems. The implications of procreation rights for income inequality and education are contrasted. We decompose the scheme’s impact on redistribution into three effects, one of them, the tradability effect, entails the following: with procreation exemptions or expensive enough procreation allowances, redistribution benefits the poor. In contrast, cheap procreation allowances redistribute resources to the rich. As far as human capital is concerned, natalist policy worsens the average education level of the next generation, while population control enhances it. If procreation rights are granted to countries in proportion to existing fertility levels (grandfathering) instead of being allocated equally, population control can be made even more redistributive. Our exploratory analysis suggests that procreation entitlements offer a promising tool to control population without necessarily leading to problematic distributive impact, especially at the global level.
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Paper provided by ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality in its series Working Papers with number
62.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Gary S. Becker & James S. Duesenberry & Bernard Okun, 1960.
"An Economic Analysis of Fertility,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries, pages 225-256
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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