Separating ethics from facts in climate-change economics
Separating ethics from facts in climate-change economics: a brief discussion of the recent work of Humberto Llavador, John Roemer, and Joaquim Silvestre / Stergios Athanassoglou, FEEM blog, 29/03/2011
http://www.feem.it/getpage.aspx?id=3879
Intergenerational tradeoffs are intrinsic to climate-change policy. They arise because, while the costs of climate-change mitigation are immediate, its essential benefits are likely to be felt only far into the future. Given this asymmetry, it is not clear how the present generation should craft its long-term environmental policy. Indeed, what welfare measure should it employ in the comparison of different intertemporal consumption paths? That is to say, on what formal basis should it decide that one consumption path is “better” than another?…