Escaping the Repugnant Conclusion: Rank-Discounted Utilitarianism with Variable Population
CESifo, Munich, 2012
CESifo Working Paper No. 3958
Evaluation of climate policies and other issues requires a variable population setting where population is endogenously determined. We propose and axiomatize the rank-discounted critical-level utilitarian social welfare order. It is shown to fill out the space between critical-level utilitarianism and (a version of) critical-level leximin. Moreover, it satisfies many conditions and principles used to evaluate variable population criteria. In particular, it avoids the repugnant conclusion even when the critical level is zero.
Public Choice
Resources and Environment