IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fdi/wpaper/1977.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quality, Quantity and Duration of Lives

Author

Listed:
  • Jean-Yves DUCLOS

    (Government of Canada)

  • Bouba HOUSSEINI

    (FERDI)

Abstract

The evaluation of development processes and of public policies often involves comparisons of social states that differ in income distributions, population sizes and life longevity. This may require social evaluation principles to be sensitive to the quality, the quantity and the duration of lives. This paper 1) reviews some of the normative issues at stake, 2) proposes and discusses some specific methods to address them in a generalized utilitarian framework, and 3) briefly illustrates the application of some of these methods to the global distribution of incomes, population sizes and longevity over the last century. Depending on the approach taken, it is found inter alia that global social welfare in 2010 can be deemed to be between 1.8 and 407 times that of 1910, the role given to the quantity of lives being particularly important in that assessment.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Yves DUCLOS & Bouba HOUSSEINI, 2015. "Quality, Quantity and Duration of Lives," Working Papers P118, FERDI.
    • Handle: RePEc:fdi:wpaper:1977
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ferdi.fr/sites/www.ferdi.fr/files/publication/fichiers/wp118_duclos.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blackorby,Charles & Bossert,Walter & Donaldson,David J., 2005. "Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics, and Ethics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521532587, October.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1027-1056.
    3. Paul Gregg, 1997. "Jobs, Wages And Poverty: Patterns Of Persistence And Mobility In The Flexible Labour Market," CEP Reports 03, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. François Bourguignon & Christian Morrisson, 2002. "Inequality Among World Citizens: 1820-1992," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 727-744, September.
    5. Gordon Anderson, 2005. "LIFE EXPECTANCY AND ECONOMIC WELFARE: THE EXAMPLE OF AFRICA IN THE 1990s," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(3), pages 455-468, September.
    6. Rafael Gomez & David K. Foot, 2003. "Age Structure, Income Distribution and Economic Growth," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 29(s1), pages 141-162, January.
    7. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James Robinson, 2005. "The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change, and Economic Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 546-579, June.
    8. Cockburn, John & Duclos, Jean-Yves & Zabsonré, Agnès, 2014. "Is global social welfare increasing? A critical-level enquiry," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 151-162.
    9. repec:bla:econom:v:50:y:1983:i:197:p:3-17 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Ng, Yew-Kwang, 1986. "Social criteria for evaluating population change: An alternative to the Blackorby-Donaldson criterion," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 375-381, April.
    11. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    12. World Bank, 2013. "World Development Indicators 2013," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13191.
    13. Blackorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1984. "Social criteria for evaluating population change," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1-2), pages 13-33, November.
    14. Nicholas-James Clavet & Jean-Yves Duclos & Bernard Fortin & Steeve Marchand & Pierre-Carl Michaud, 2013. "Les dépenses en santé du gouvernement du Québec, 2013-2030 : projections et déterminants," CIRANO Working Papers 2013s-45, CIRANO.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jean-Yves Duclos & Bouba Housseini, 2015. "Does Quality, Quantity and Duration of Lives," Cahiers de recherche 1501, Chaire de recherche Industrielle Alliance sur les enjeux économiques des changements démographiques.
    2. Jean-Yves Duclos & Bouba Housseini, 2015. "Quality, Quantity and Duration of Lives," CIRANO Working Papers 2015s-12, CIRANO.
    3. Jean‐Yves Duclos & Bouba Housseini, 2015. "Quality, quantity and duration of lives," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(1), pages 1-27, February.
    4. Cockburn, John & Duclos, Jean-Yves & Zabsonré, Agnès, 2014. "Is global social welfare increasing? A critical-level enquiry," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 151-162.
    5. Claudio Zoli, 2009. "Variable population welfare and poverty orderings satisfying replication properties," Working Papers 69/2009, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    6. John COCKBURN & Jean-Yves DUCLOS & Agnès ZABSONRÉ, 2011. "Is the value of humanity increasing? A critical-level enquiry," Working Papers I13, FERDI.
    7. Stelter, Robert, 2014. "Over-aging: Are present human populations too old?," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 137, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    8. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2006. "Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 2006-15, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
      • BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2006. "Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 14-2006, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    9. Cordoba, Juan Carlos & Liu, Xiying, 2018. "Efficiency with Endogenous Population and Fixed Resources," ISU General Staff Papers 201811010700001062, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    10. John A Weymark, 2012. "Social Welfare Functions," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers vuecon-sub-13-00018, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    11. Pierre-André Jouvet & Gregory Ponthiere, 2011. "Survival, reproduction and congestion: the spaceship problem re-examined," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 233-273, October.
    12. Pierre-André Jouvet & Pierre Pestieau & Grégory Ponthière, 2008. "The Spaceship Problem Re-Examined," EconomiX Working Papers 2008-28, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    13. Gregory Ponthiere, 2016. "Utilitarian population ethics and births timing," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 117(3), pages 189-238, April.
    14. Dasgupta, P., 2016. "Birth and Death," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1660, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    15. Alain Trannoy & John Weymark, 2007. "Dominance Criteria for Critical-Level Generalized Utilitarianism," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0707, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    16. Marc Fleurbaey, 2009. "Beyond GDP: The Quest for a Measure of Social Welfare," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1029-1075, December.
    17. Vittorio Daniele & Paolo Malanima, 2019. "Trends in Mediterranean Inequalities 1950-2015," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 66(4), pages 385-410.
    18. Walter Bossert & Susumu Cato & Kohei Kamaga, 2023. "Thresholds, critical levels, and generalized sufficientarian principles," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(4), pages 1099-1139, May.
    19. Stelter, Robert, 2016. "Over-aging — Are present-day human populations too old?," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 116-143.
    20. Treich, Nicolas & Espinosa, Romain, 2024. "The Animal-Welfare Levy," TSE Working Papers 24-1503, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • 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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fdi:wpaper:1977. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Vincent Mazenod (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ferdifr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.