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Population Ethics

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  • BLACKORBY, Charles
  • BOSSERT, Walter
  • DONALDSON, David

Abstract

This paper reviews the welfarist approach to population ethics. We provide an overview of the critical-level utilitarian population principles and their generalized counterparts, examine important properties of these principles and discuss their relationships to other variable-population social-evaluation rules. We illustrate the difficulties arising in population ethics by means of an impossibility result and present characterizations of the critical-level generalized-utilitarian principles and of three of their sub-classes.

Suggested Citation

  • BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2006. "Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 14-2006, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    • Handle: RePEc:mtl:montec:14-2006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2003. "Population Ethics and the Value of Life," Cahiers de recherche 2003-07, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    2. 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.
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    5. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson, 2005. "Multi-profile welfarism: A generalization," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 24(2), pages 253-267, April.
    6. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson, 2006. "Anonymous Single-profile Welfarism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 27(2), pages 279-287, October.
    7. W. M. Gorman, 1968. "The Structure of Utility Functions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 35(4), pages 367-390.
    8. 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.
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    10. Claude D'Aspremont & Louis Gevers, 1977. "Equity and the Informational Basis of Collective Choice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(2), pages 199-209.
    11. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson, 2007. "Variable-population extensions of social aggregation theorems," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 28(4), pages 567-589, June.
    12. Sen, Amartya K, 1977. "On Weights and Measures: Informational Constraints in Social Welfare Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(7), pages 1539-1572, October.
    13. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson, 2002. "Population Principles with Number‐Dependent Critical Levels," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 4(3), pages 347-368, July.
    14. Broome, John, 2006. "Weighing Lives," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199297702, Decembrie.
    15. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson & Marc Fleurbaey, 1998. "Critical levels and the (reverse) repugnant conclusion," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 67(1), pages 1-15, February.
    16. Blackorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1984. "Social criteria for evaluating population change," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1-2), pages 13-33, November.
    17. Ng, Yew-Kwang, 1989. "What Should We Do About Future Generations?," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 235-253, October.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2003. "Population Ethics and the Value of Life," Cahiers de recherche 05-2003, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    2. Walter Bossert & David Donaldson & Charles Blackorby, 1999. "Rationalizable solutions to pure population problems," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 16(3), pages 395-407.
    3. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson, 2007. "Variable-population extensions of social aggregation theorems," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 28(4), pages 567-589, June.
    4. Fleurbaey, Marc & Michel, Philippe, 2003. "Intertemporal equity and the extension of the Ramsey criterion," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 777-802, September.
    5. Blackorby, Charles & Bossert, Walter & Donaldson, David, 1999. "Price-Independent Welfare Prescriptions and Population Size," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 111-119, January.
    6. BOSSERT, Walter, 2006. "Consistent Relations," Cahiers de recherche 2006-03, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    7. Ravi Kanbur & Diganta Mukherjee, 2007. "Premature Mortality And Poverty Measurement," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(4), pages 339-359, October.
    8. Ritxar Arlegi & Miguel Angel Ballester & María del Carmen Marco & Jorge Nieto, 2000. "Variable population egalitarian ethics and the critical-level: A note," Documentos de Trabajo - Lan Gaiak Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra 0013, Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra.
    9. C. Simon Fan & Oded Stark, 2008. "Looking At The "Population Problem" Through The Prism Of Heterogeneity: Welfare And Policy Analyses," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(3), pages 799-835, August.
    10. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson, 2003. "The Axiomatic Approach to Population Ethics," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 2(3), pages 342-381, October.
    11. Antoine Bommier & Stéphane Zuber, 2008. "Can preferences for catastrophe avoidance reconcile social discounting with intergenerational equity?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 31(3), pages 415-434, October.
    12. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter, 2004. "Interpersonal Comparisons of Well-Being," Cahiers de recherche 2004-06, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    13. Charles Blackorby & Walter Bossert & David Donaldson, 2007. "Intertemporal Social Evaluation," International Economic Association Series, in: John Roemer & Kotaro Suzumura (ed.), Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability, chapter 9, pages 131-154, Palgrave Macmillan.
    14. Walter Bossert & Satya R. Chakravarty & Conchita D’Ambrosio, 2019. "Poverty and Time," Themes in Economics, in: Satya R. Chakravarty (ed.), Poverty, Social Exclusion and Stochastic Dominance, pages 63-82, Springer.
      • BOSSERT, Walter & CHAKRAVARTY, Satya R. & D’AMBROSIO, Conchita, 2008. "Poverty and Time," Cahiers de recherche 05-2008, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
      • BOSSERT, Walter & CHAKRAVARTY, Satya R. & D’AMBROSIO, Conchita, 2008. "Poverty and Time," Cahiers de recherche 2008-05, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
      • Walter Bossert & Satya R. Chakravarty & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2010. "Poverty and Time," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2010-074, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
      • Walter Bossert & Satya R. Chakravarty & Conchita D’Ambrosio, 2008. "Poverty and Time," Working Papers 87, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    15. Ania, Ana B. & Wagener, Andreas, 2009. "The Open Method of Coordination (OMC) as an Evolutionary Learning Process," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-416, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Population Ethics; Social Evaluation; Welfarism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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