Essays on intergenerational justice

In this thesis I address the following question: What do we owe to future generations? My research aims at providing a normative analysis of equitable distributions of resources over time. The main novelty lies in the approach proposed, based on the fairness literature: for each specification of the economy, axioms of efficiency and equity interpret the ethical concerns of the planner and give clear indications about which are the optimal (or more appealing) amount of goods that each generation should be allowed to consume. On the one hand, I do believe that this method constitutes an interesting way to overcome both the discounting debate (i.e. Nordhaus, Stern, and Weitzman) – concerned with the present value of goods in the future – and the quite negative results of the utility streams literature – developed from the seminal result of Diamond (1965, “The evaluation of infinite utility streams,” Econometrica, 33, 170-77) stating the impossibility of a social welfare function that is both equitable and sensitive to the interest of all generations. On the other hand, it closes the gap between the empirical assessment of climatologists about the conditions of our planet and a normative understanding of a fair distribution of resources; it allows for an integrated approach providing policy indications for environmental preservation and intergenerational justice.(ECON 3) -- UCL, 201