期刊名称：Discussion Paper Series / Economics Department, University of Swansea
出版年度：2003
卷号：1
出版社：University of Swansea
摘要：Major environmental policy actions are likely to affect both the numbers and identities of new people (into an indefinite future), as well as their individual lifetime wellbeings. In that case, policy evaluation must incorporate a broader set of ethical considerations than the appropriate choice of discount factor. A simple dynamic model linking population, resources and environmental quality is used to generate policy-induced scenarios that are evaluated on the basis of three ethical principles: (i) causing people to exist cannot benefit them; (ii) causing wretched people to exist harms them: and (iii) impartiality with respect to the identities of future people. (i) and (ii) constitute “the Asymmetry”. Using defensible assumptions, it is seen that where policies induce steady-state population increase, the Asymmetry will generally imply an absolute increase in the numbers of wretched people and, therefore, a steady-state reduction in welfare.
关键词：environmental policy, inter-temporal welfare, population-environment interactions, population ethics
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