Koopmans’s (Econometrica 28, 287–309) axiomatization of discounted utilitarianism is based on seemingly compelling conditions, yet this criterion leads to hard-to-justify outcomes. The present analysis considers a class of sustainable recursive social welfare functions within Koopmans’s...

We develop a framework for analyzing national income accounting using a revealed welfare approach that is sufficiently general to cover, e.g., both the standard discounted utilitarian and maximin criteria as special cases. We show that the basic welfare properties of comprehensive national...

In the framework of ethical social choice theory, sustainability is justified by Efficiency and Equity as ethical axioms. These axioms correspond to the Suppes-Sen Grading principle. In technologies that are productive in a certain sense, the set of Suppes-Sen maximal utility paths is shown to...

This paper summarizes assumptions made and results obtained in parts of the literature on welfare and sustainability accounting. I consider five di®erent assumptions that can be imposed independently of each other, producing 32 different combinations. This taxonomy is used to organize results...

This paper analyzes the socially optimal forest taxation in the rotation framework when the government has a binding tax revenue requirement. In the Faustmann model the optimal design of taxation consists of non-distortionary taxes, such as site productivity tax, site value tax or profit tax. A...

Fossil fuels are non-renewable carbon resources, and the extraction path of these resources depends both on present and future demand. When this 'Hotelling feature' is taken into consideration, the whole price path of carbon fuel will shift downwards as a response to the reduced cost of the...

Economies that currently have the same productive capacity may implement different growth rates. This entails that it is insufficient to base international comparisons of welfare solely on current well-being, or introducing the potential for future growth in an arbitrary manner. NNP-based...

This paper simulates a set of proposed policies from the Norwegian pension reform within a structural dynamic model of health and retirement estimated on the Norwegian labour market data. The paper focuses on the two main elements of the reform, namely the new pension entitlement accrual rules...

We augment a standard dictator game to investigate how preferences for an environmental project relate to willingness to limit others' choices. We explore this issue by distinguishing three student groups: economists, environmental economists, and environmental social scientists. We find that...

We assess the empirical validity of the overall theoretical framework of other-regarding preferences by focusing on those preference axioms that are common to all the prominent theories of outcome-based other-regarding preferences. This common set of preference axioms leads to a testable...