Growing Under Far Future Risks of Catastrophic Climate Change: In the Perspective of Chichilnisky”s Axioms
The social welfare criteria based on discounted utilitarianism fail to explain why society would be willing to prevent catastrophes that could only happen in the far distant future.Other welfare criteria with strong notions of intergenerational equity lack the analytical tractability of discounted utilitarianism.This paper offers an alternative set of welfare criteria that focuses on the probability of catastrophe rather than on intergenerational equity.This paper proves that a Chichilnisky”s-axiom-like (Chichilnisky, 1996, 2000) social welfare criterion should be applied if the value of our civilization is equally weighted for all time periods.This criterion could justify societal efforts to prevent catastrophe while preserving the analytical clarity of discounted utilitarianism.Applying this criterion to an ”AK” economy with abatement technology, I examine the effects of catastrophic risk on growth and welfare.This exercise illustrates the limitations of cost-benefit analysis when all of human civilization is endangered.
Chichilnisky”s axioms Catastrophic risk Climate Change Maximum principle
Meng Shen
School of Economics, Capital University of Economics and Business
国内会议
杭州
英文
123-130
2014-10-25（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）