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Resolving Distributional Conflicts Between Generations

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Justifying, Characterizing and Indicating Sustainability

Part of the book series: Sustainability, Economics, and Natural Resources ((SENR,volume 3))

We describe a new approach to the problem of resolving distributional conflicts between an infinite and countable number of generations.We impose conditions on the social preferences that capture the following idea: If preference (or indifference) holds between truncated paths for infinitely many truncating times, then preference (or indifference) holds also between the untruncated infinite paths. In this framework, we use such conditions to (1) characterize different versions of leximin and utilitarianism by means of equity conditions well known from the finite setting, and (2) illustrate the problem of combining Strong Pareto and impartiality in an intergenerational setting.

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Asheim, G.B., Tungodden, B. (2007). Resolving Distributional Conflicts Between Generations. In: Justifying, Characterizing and Indicating Sustainability. Sustainability, Economics, and Natural Resources, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6200-1_4

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