This paper describes conditions under which one investment project dominates a second project in terms of net present value, irrespective of the choice of the discount rate. The resulting partial ordering of projects has certain similarities to stochastic dominance. However, the structure of the...

We study the underlying structure of the two-dimensional dynamical system generated by a class of dynamic optimization models, which allow for intertemporal complementarity between adjacent periods, but which preserve the time additively separable framework of Ramsey models. Specifically, we...

A definition of a utilitarian social welfare relation (SWR) for infinite utility streams is proposed. Such a relation is characterized in terms of the Pareto, Anonymity and Partial Unit Comparability Axioms. The merits of the utilitarian SWR, relative to the more restrictive SWR induced by the...

The paper examines the nature of competitive paths in an exhaustible resource model, which allows for growing population. For competitive paths which are equitable in the sense that the per capita consumption level is constant over time, the implicit investment rule is derived. This is seen to...

It has been known that, in aggregating infinite utility streams, there does not exist any social welfare function, which satisfies the axioms of Pareto, inter-generational equity and continuity. We show that the impossibility result persists even without imposing the continuity axiom, and in...

This paper is concerned with the issue of characterizing the situations in which all the literacy indices, consistent with a set of reasonable axioms, would provide the same ranking of societies. It is shown that a theory, analogous to that developed for the Lorenz order in the study of income...

We study a one-sector stochastic optimal growth model with a representative agent. Utility is logarithmic and the production function is of the Cobb-Douglas form with capital exponent alpha. Production is affected by a multiplicative shock taking one of two values with positive probabilities p...

The standard route for aggregating infinite utility streams using a real-valued representation runs into well-known difficulties as soon as we insist on the axiom of inter-generational equity. The aim of this paper is to explore what is feasible without abandoning this axiom. The paper focusses...

Under a minimal set of assumptions, the paper identifies conditions on the transition function of a Markov process leading to the following three scenarios: extinction, conservation, and the existence of a safe standard of conservation. These conditions are used to obtain restrictions on a...

In this paper, we examine the restrictions that any concept of extended anonymity must satisfy in order to be compatible with the existence of a Paretian social welfare relation (SWR). We completely characterize the class of permissible permutations associated with any Paretian SWR; that is,...