Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/64160 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2010-13
Publisher: 
University of Massachusetts, Department of Economics, Amherst, MA
Abstract: 
We analyse the issue of justice in the allocation of resources across generations. Our starting point is that if all generations have a claim to natural resources, then each generation should be entitled to exercise veto power on the unpalatable choices of the other generations. We analyse this situation as one of bargaining á la Rubinstein, Safra and Thomson [15], which incorporates a notion of justice as mutual advantage, rather than justice as impartiality, as in the Kantian-Rawlsian tradition. Our framework captures some key aspects of the interaction between isolated agents in a Hobbesian state of nature, in which agents are not placed behind a veil of ignorance, but none of them is sufficiently strong to impose their will against all others (state of war of all against all). We analyse some new social welfare relations emerging from this Hobbesian framework.
Subjects: 
intergenerational justice
bargaining
Hobbes
social choice
JEL: 
D63
Q01
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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