Irreversibility, ignorance, and the intergenerational equity-efficieny trade-off
Publikation: Arbeits- oder Diskussionspapiere und Berichte › Arbeits- oder Diskussionspapiere
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Lüneburg: Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Lüneburg, 2011. (University of Lüneburg Working Paper Series in Economics; Nr. 198).
Publikation: Arbeits- oder Diskussionspapiere und Berichte › Arbeits- oder Diskussionspapiere
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TY - UNPB
T1 - Irreversibility, ignorance, and the intergenerational equity-efficieny trade-off
AU - Hoberg, Nikolai
AU - Baumgärtner, Stefan
PY - 2011/2
Y1 - 2011/2
N2 - We demonstrate the existence of an intergenerational equity-efficiency trade- off in policy-making that aims at Pareto-efficiency across generations and sustainability, i.e. non-decreasing utility over time. Our model includes two salient characteristics of sustainability problems and policy: (i) temporal irreversibility, i.e. the inability to re- vise one’s past actions; (ii) closed ignorance, i.e. future consequences of present actions in human-environment systems may be “unknown unknowns”. If initially unforeseen sustainability problems become apparent and policy is enacted after irreversible ac- tions were taken, policy-making faces a fundamental trade-off between intergenerational Pareto-efficiency and sustainability.
AB - We demonstrate the existence of an intergenerational equity-efficiency trade- off in policy-making that aims at Pareto-efficiency across generations and sustainability, i.e. non-decreasing utility over time. Our model includes two salient characteristics of sustainability problems and policy: (i) temporal irreversibility, i.e. the inability to re- vise one’s past actions; (ii) closed ignorance, i.e. future consequences of present actions in human-environment systems may be “unknown unknowns”. If initially unforeseen sustainability problems become apparent and policy is enacted after irreversible ac- tions were taken, policy-making faces a fundamental trade-off between intergenerational Pareto-efficiency and sustainability.
KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics
KW - climate change
KW - closed ignorance
KW - intergenerational equity-efficiency trade- of
KW - irreversibility
KW - Pareto-efficiency
KW - sustainability
KW - Economics
KW - climate change
KW - closed ignorance
KW - intergenerational equity-efficiency trade- of
KW - irreversibility
KW - Pareto-efficiency
KW - sustainability
KW - Energy research
M3 - Working papers
T3 - University of Lüneburg Working Paper Series in Economics
BT - Irreversibility, ignorance, and the intergenerational equity-efficieny trade-off
PB - Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Lüneburg
CY - Lüneburg
ER -