- Title
- Compensating The Dead
- Author(s)
- Marc Fleurbaey Marc Fleurbaey (Princeton University)
- Marie-Louise Leroux Marie-Louise Leroux (Universite du Quebec a Montreal)
- Gregory Ponthiere Gregory Ponthiere (Paris School of Economics)
- Abstract
- An early death is, undoubtedly, a serious disadvantage. However, the compensation of short-lived individuals has remained so far largely unexplored, probably because it appears infeasible. Indeed, short-lived agents can hardly be identified ex ante, and cannot be compensated ex post. We argue that, despite those difficulties, a compensation can be carried out by encouraging early consumption in the life cycle. In a model with heterogeneous preferences and longevities, we show how a specific social criterion can be derived from intuitive principles, and we study the corresponding optimal policy under various informational assumptions.
- Creation Date
- 2011-11
- Section URL ID
- ET
- Paper Number
- wp028_2011_Fleurbaey_Leroux_Ponthiere.pdf
- URL
- http://detc.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp028_2011_Fleurbaey_Leroux_Ponthiere.pdf
- File Function
- Jel
- D63, D71, I18, J18
- Keyword(s)
- compensation, longevity, mortality, fairness, redistribution
- Suppress
- false
- Series
- 10