Intergenerational equity and sustainability: a large population approach

Abstract Patient and Pareto responsive (pPr) societal preferences were introduced studied in Khan Stinchcombe (2018). This paper develops a tractable subclass of the pPr that satisfy strong equity criterion formulated to match intuitions results for large but finite models. In population models where number happiness future people is stochastic, only optimal policies require sustainability (resp. an abundance effort) presence irreversible difficult reverse) negative externalities suffered by generations. Partially ordering increasing degrees inequality aversion over generations, more averse give rise choices are counterintutive from ethics viewpoint smaller sets problems.