IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/annopr/v251y2017i1d10.1007_s10479-015-1837-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainability and intertemporal equity: a multicriteria approach

Author

Listed:
  • Cinzia Colapinto

    (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

  • Danilo Liuzzi

    (University of Milan)

  • Simone Marsiglio

    (University of Wollongong)

Abstract

In (macro)economics literature, the need to consider sustainability and intertemporal equity issues leads to propose different criteria (discounted utilitarianism, green golden rule, Chichilnisky criterion) in order to define social welfare. We compare and assess the outcomes associated to such alternative criteria in a simple macroeconomic model with natural resources and environmental concern (Chichilnisky et al. in Econ Lett 49:174–179, 1995), by relying on a multicriteria approach. We show that among these three criteria, the green golden rule (discounted utilitarianism) yields the highest (lowest) welfare level, while the Chichilnisky criterion leads to an intermediate welfare level which turns out to be increasing in the weight attached to the asymptotic utility. These results suggest that completely neglecting finite-time utilities and focusing only on the asymptotic utility is not only more sensible from a sustainability point of view but also from a social welfare maximization standpoint.

Suggested Citation

  • Cinzia Colapinto & Danilo Liuzzi & Simone Marsiglio, 2017. "Sustainability and intertemporal equity: a multicriteria approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 251(1), pages 271-284, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:251:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s10479-015-1837-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s10479-015-1837-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10479-015-1837-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10479-015-1837-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Belaid Aouni & Fouad Ben Abdelaziz & Davide La Torre, 2012. "The stochastic goal programming model: Theory and applications," Post-Print hal-00778729, HAL.
    2. Ayong Le Kama, Alain D., 2001. "Sustainable growth, renewable resources and pollution," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(12), pages 1911-1918, December.
    3. Eliasson, Ludvik & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2004. "Renewable resources in an endogenously growing economy: balanced growth and transitional dynamics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 1018-1049, November.
    4. Raouf Boucekkine & Giorgio Fabbri, 2013. "Assessing Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion within a canonical endogenous growth set-up," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 751-767, April.
    5. Kenneth Arrow & Partha Dasgupta & Lawrence Goulder & Gretchen Daily & Paul Ehrlich & Geoffrey Heal & Simon Levin & Karl-Göran Mäler & Stephen Schneider & David Starrett & Brian Walker, 2004. "Are We Consuming Too Much?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 147-172, Summer.
    6. Charles Figuières & Mabel Tidball, 2016. "Sustainable Exploitation of a Natural Resource: A Satisfying Use of Chichilnisky’s Criterion," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Graciela Chichilnisky & Armon Rezai (ed.), The Economics of the Global Environment, pages 207-229, Springer.
    7. A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper & R. O. Ferguson, 1955. "Optimal Estimation of Executive Compensation by Linear Programming," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 1(2), pages 138-151, January.
    8. Marsiglio, Simone, 2014. "Reassessing Edgeworth’s conjecture when population dynamics is stochastic," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 130-140.
    9. Palivos, Theodore & Yip, Chong K., 1993. "Optimal population size and endogenous growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 107-110.
    10. Mohtadi, Hamid, 1996. "Environment, growth, and optimal policy design," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 119-140, December.
    11. Belaïd Aouni & Cinzia Colapinto & Davide Torre, 2013. "A cardinality constrained stochastic goal programming model with satisfaction functions for venture capital investment decision making," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 205(1), pages 77-88, May.
    12. Aouni, Belaid & Kettani, Ossama, 2001. "Goal programming model: A glorious history and a promising future," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 133(2), pages 225-231, January.
    13. Chichilnisky, Graciela & Heal, Geoffrey & Beltratti, Andrea, 1995. "The Green Golden Rule," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 175-179, August.
    14. Belaïd Aouni & Cinzia Colapinto & Davide La Torre, 2012. "Stochastic goal programming model and satisfaction functions for media selection and planning problem," International Journal of Multicriteria Decision Making, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 2(4), pages 391-407.
    15. John C. V. Pezzey, 1997. "Sustainability Constraints versus "Optimality" versus Intertemporal Concern, and Axioms versus Data," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 73(4), pages 448-466.
    16. Shmelev, Stanislav E., 2011. "Dynamic sustainability assessment: The case of Russia in the period of transition (1985-2008)," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 2039-2049, September.
    17. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    18. Gamper, C.D. & Turcanu, C., 2007. "On the governmental use of multi-criteria analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 298-307, April.
    19. Heal, Geoffrey, 2005. "Intertemporal Welfare Economics and the Environment," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 21, pages 1105-1145, Elsevier.
    20. Marsiglio, Simone, 2011. "On the relationship between population change and sustainable development," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 353-364, December.
    21. A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1959. "Chance-Constrained Programming," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 73-79, October.
    22. Marsiglio, Simone & La Torre, Davide, 2012. "Population dynamics and utilitarian criteria in the Lucas–Uzawa Model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 1197-1204.
    23. Stanislav Edward Shmelev (ODID), "undated". "Dynamic Sustainability Assessment: The Case of Russia in the Period of Transition (1985-2007)," QEH Working Papers qehwps182, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    24. Guitouni, Adel & Martel, Jean-Marc, 1998. "Tentative guidelines to help choosing an appropriate MCDA method," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 501-521, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Herb Kunze & Davide La Torre & Simone Marsiglio, 2019. "A Multicriteria Macroeconomic Model with Intertemporal Equity and Spatial Spillovers," Papers 1911.08247, arXiv.org.
    2. Torre, Davide La & Liuzzi, Danilo & Marsiglio, Simone, 2021. "Transboundary pollution externalities: Think globally, act locally?," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    3. Cinzia Colapinto & Raja Jayaraman & Simone Marsiglio, 2017. "Multi-criteria decision analysis with goal programming in engineering, management and social sciences: a state-of-the art review," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 251(1), pages 7-40, April.
    4. Simone Marsiglio & Fabio Privileggi, 2021. "On the economic growth and environmental trade-off: a multi-objective analysis," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 296(1), pages 263-289, January.
    5. Herb Kunze & Davide Torre & Simone Marsiglio, 2022. "Sustainability and spatial spillovers in a multicriteria macroeconomic model," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 311(2), pages 1067-1084, April.
    6. Davide Torre & Danilo Liuzzi & Simone Marsiglio, 2017. "Pollution Control Under Uncertainty and Sustainability Concern," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(4), pages 885-903, August.
    7. Yongjian Li & Qianzhou Deng & Chi Zhou & Lipan Feng, 2020. "Environmental governance strategies in a two-echelon supply chain with tax and subsidy interactions," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 290(1), pages 439-462, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Herb Kunze & Davide La Torre & Simone Marsiglio, 2019. "A Multicriteria Macroeconomic Model with Intertemporal Equity and Spatial Spillovers," Papers 1911.08247, arXiv.org.
    2. Marsiglio, Simone, 2011. "On the relationship between population change and sustainable development," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 353-364, December.
    3. Herb Kunze & Davide Torre & Simone Marsiglio, 2022. "Sustainability and spatial spillovers in a multicriteria macroeconomic model," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 311(2), pages 1067-1084, April.
    4. Graciela Chichilnisky & Peter J. Hammond & Nicholas Stern, 2020. "Fundamental utilitarianism and intergenerational equity with extinction discounting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(2), pages 397-427, March.
    5. Cinzia Colapinto & Raja Jayaraman & Simone Marsiglio, 2017. "Multi-criteria decision analysis with goal programming in engineering, management and social sciences: a state-of-the art review," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 251(1), pages 7-40, April.
    6. Simone Marsiglio, 2017. "A simple endogenous growth model with endogenous fertility and environmental concern," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 64(3), pages 263-282, July.
    7. Marsiglio, Simone, 2014. "Reassessing Edgeworth’s conjecture when population dynamics is stochastic," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 130-140.
    8. Mubashir Qasim, 2018. "Some Links between Sustainability and Well-Being," Working Papers in Economics 18/13, University of Waikato.
    9. Lee H. Endress & James A. Roumasset & Christopher A. Wada, 2020. "Do Natural Disasters Make Sustainable Growth Impossible?," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 319-345, July.
    10. Majah-Leah Ravago & James Roumasset, 2009. "Economic Policy for Sustainable Growth and Development vs. Greedy Growth and Preservationism," Working Papers 200909, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    11. Xepapadeas, Anastasios, 2005. "Economic growth and the environment," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1219-1271, Elsevier.
    12. Umar Muhammad Modibbo & Irfan Ali & Aquil Ahmed, 2021. "Multi-objective optimization modelling for analysing sustainable development goals of Nigeria: Agenda 2030," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(6), pages 9529-9563, June.
    13. Belaid AOUNI & Cinzia COLAPINTO & Davide LA TORRE, 2008. "Solving stochastic multi-objective programming through the GP model," Departmental Working Papers 2008-18, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    14. Cairns, Robert D. & Martinet, Vincent, 2014. "An environmental-economic measure of sustainable development," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 4-17.
    15. Aouni, Belaid & Colapinto, Cinzia & La Torre, Davide, 2014. "Financial portfolio management through the goal programming model: Current state-of-the-art," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 536-545.
    16. Irfan Ali & Umar Muhammad Modibbo & Jahangir Chauhan & Maryam Meraj, 2021. "An integrated multi-objective optimization modelling for sustainable development goals of India," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 3811-3831, March.
    17. Raouf Boucekkine & Blanca Martínez & J. Ramon Ruiz-Tamarit, 2018. "Optimal Population Growth as an Endogenous Discounting Problem: The Ramsey Case," Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, in: Gustav Feichtinger & Raimund M. Kovacevic & Gernot Tragler (ed.), Control Systems and Mathematical Methods in Economics, pages 321-347, Springer.
    18. Raja Jayaraman & Danilo Liuzzi & Cinzia Colapinto & Tufail Malik, 2017. "A fuzzy goal programming model to analyze energy, environmental and sustainability goals of the United Arab Emirates," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 251(1), pages 255-270, April.
    19. Raja Jayaraman & Cinzia Colapinto & Danilo Liuzzi & Davide Torre, 2017. "Planning sustainable development through a scenario-based stochastic goal programming model," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 789-805, October.
    20. Aouni, Belaid & Ben Abdelaziz, Foued & Martel, Jean-Marc, 2005. "Decision-maker's preferences modeling in the stochastic goal programming," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 162(3), pages 610-618, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:251:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s10479-015-1837-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.