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Life quantity, life quality and longevity: An intertemporal social evaluation framework

Author

Listed:
  • Jean-Yves DUCLOS

    (Gouvernement du Canada)

  • Bouba HOUSSEINI

    (FERDI)

Abstract

The evaluation of development processes and of public policies often involves comparisons of social states in which populations differ in size and longevity. This requires social evaluation principles to be sensitive to both the number and the length of lives. This paper explores the use of axiomatic and welfarist principles to assess social welfare in that framework. It attempts to overcome some of the limits of existing methods in the literature, in particular by avoiding a temporal repugnant conclusion, by neither penalizing nor favoring life fragmentation, and by satisfying critical-level temporal consistency. It does this by characterizing a critical-level lifetime utility function that values life periodically. To address some of the controversies on discounting utilities across time, two alternative versions of the function are developed, one with discounting and one without.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Yves DUCLOS & Bouba HOUSSEINI, 2013. "Life quantity, life quality and longevity: An intertemporal social evaluation framework," Working Papers P79, FERDI.
    • Handle: RePEc:fdi:wpaper:1085
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

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    5. Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Zandvakili, Sourushe, 1986. "A class of generalized measures of mobility with applications," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 97-102.
    6. Sen, Amartya, 2005. "Social choice theory," Handbook of Mathematical Economics, in: K. J. Arrow & M.D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Mathematical Economics, edition 2, volume 3, chapter 22, pages 1073-1181, Elsevier.
    7. Rafael Salas & Isabel Rabadan, 1998. "Lifetime And Vertical Intertemporal Inequality, Income Smoothing, And Redistribution: A Social Welfare Approach," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 44(1), pages 63-79, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Nick Parr & Ross Guest, 2014. "A method for socially evaluating the effects of long-run demographic paths on living standards," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 31(11), pages 275-318.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C02 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - General - - - Mathematical Economics
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • J17 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Value of Life; Foregone Income

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