Prioritarianism and Climate Change

53 Pages Posted: 29 Mar 2021 Last revised: 30 Jun 2021

See all articles by Maddalena Ferranna

Maddalena Ferranna

Harvard University - T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Marc Fleurbaey

Paris School of Economics

Date Written: March 27, 2021

Abstract

The paper compares utilitarianism and prioritarianism as alternative social welfare frameworks for evaluating climate policies. We review the main debates in the climate policy literature concerning the parameters of the utilitarian social welfare function, and discuss the analytical requirements and climate policy implications of prioritarianism both in deterministic and stochastic settings. We show that, given the specific characteristics of the climate issue and the assumptions routinely made in the climate literature, prioritarianism tends to support more lenient climate policies than undiscounted utilitarianism. This is based on the assumption of economic and social progress that makes the current generation worse-off than future generations. The presence of catastrophic climate outcomes that endanger the living conditions of future generations (or of the poorest individuals living in the future) relaxes this result.

Keywords: climate change, prioritiarianism, social cost of carbon, utilitarianism, inequality, climate policy, damage risk

JEL Classification: D63, D81, Q54

Suggested Citation

Ferranna, Maddalena and Fleurbaey, Marc, Prioritarianism and Climate Change (March 27, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3813825 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3813825

Maddalena Ferranna (Contact Author)

Harvard University - T.H. Chan School of Public Health ( email )

677 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA MA 02115
United States

Marc Fleurbaey

Paris School of Economics ( email )

48 Boulevard Jourdan
Paris, 75014 75014
France

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