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Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy?

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Marie-Louise Leroux
Grégory Ponthière

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Abstract

Classical utilitarianism, if coupled with standard assumptions such as the expected utility hypothesis and additive lifetime welfare, has the undesirable corollary to recommend a redistribution of resources from short-lived to long-lived agents, against any intuition of compensation. This paper proposes a remedy to that undesirable property of utilitarianism. This remedy consists in imputing, when solving the social planner's problem, the consumption equivalent of a long life to the consumption of long-lived agents. Provided the consumption equivalent is positive, the modified first-best problem exhibits a compensation of short-lived agents, under the form of a higher consumption. Then, in a general framework where agents differ in survival prospects, we compare the ex ante remedy (compensating agents with a lower life expectancy) and the ex post remedy (compensating short-lived agents), and show their incompatibility.

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Paper provided by PSE (Ecole normale supérieure) in its series PSE Working Papers with number 2009-19.

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Date of creation: 2009
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Handle: RePEc:pse:psecon:2009-19

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  1. Gary S. Becker & Tomas J. Philipson & Rodrigo R. Soares, 2005. "The Quantity and Quality of Life and the Evolution of World Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 277-291, March. [Downloadable!]
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  2. W. Kip Viscusi & Joseph E. Aldy, 2003. "The Value of a Statistical Life: A Critical Review of Market Estimates throughout the World," NBER Working Papers 9487, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Marc Fleurbaey & François Maniquet, 2006. "Compensation and responsibility," Working Papers halshs-00121367_v1, HAL. [Downloadable!]
  4. LEROUX, Marie-Louise & PESTIEAU, Pierre & PONTHIéRE, GrŽgory, 2008. "Should we subsidize longevity?," CORE Discussion Papers 2008058, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE). [Downloadable!]
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  5. Antoine Bommier, 2006. "Uncertain Lifetime And Intertemporal Choice: Risk Aversion As A Rationale For Time Discounting," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1223-1246, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-24.

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