The present paper investigates a standard model of endogenous fertility when child survival to adulthood is uncertain. In this framework, I first show that facing the risk their children die before reaching adulthood, parents don’t always formulate a precautionary demand for children. Indeed,...

Very few studies have explored the optimality properties of the "standard model" of fertility where parents must determine their optimal trade-off between quality and quantity. The present paper works to fill that gap and find three main results. First, when there exist positive externalities in...

In this paper we propose a pension policy that would isolate the social security system from any financial crisis resulting from changes in population structure. This policy consists of linking social security benefits to the fertility behaviour of the individual.

In this paper we propose a pension policy that would isolate the social security system from any financial crisis resulting from changes in population structure. This policy consists of linking social security benefits to the fertility behaviour of the individual. We present a theoretical...

This paper re-examines a counterintuitive corollary of utilitarianism under unequal longevities: the tendency to redistribute resources from short-lived towards long-lived agents, against any intuition of compensation. It is shown that this corollary prevails not only under time-additive...

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...

In a number of countries one observes a steady decline in defined benefits pensions schemes,public or private, funded or unfunded, and a simultaneous expansion of defined contributionsplans. One of the consequences of this trend is to deprive individuals at the time of theirretirement from the...

This paper studies the normative problem of redistribution between agents who can influence their survival probability through private health spending, but who differ in their attitude towards the risks involved in the lotteries of life to be chosen. For that purpose, we develop a two-period...

Dans cet article, nous étudions l’impact des différences de longévité sur la conception des politiques publiques, en particulier celles liées au départ à la retraite. Nous montrons premièrement qu’alors même que l’espérance de vie a augmenté de manière très importante tout au...

Nous proposons une méthode pour évaluer la capacité des systèmes de taxation du revenu de diminuer la pauvreté, lorsque celle-ci est définie en cohérence avec une notion de niveau de vie issue de l’éthique de la responsabilité. Selon cette éthique, toutes les inégalités ne sont pas...