An early death is, undoubtedly, a serious disadvantage. However, the compensation of short-lived individuals has remained so far largely unexplored, probably because it appears infeasible. Indeed, short-lived agents can hardly be identified ex ante, and cannot be compensated ex post. We argue...

This paper studies the normative problem of redistribution between agents who can influence their survival probability through private health spending, but who differ in their attitude towards the risks involved in the lotteries of life to be chosen. For that purpose, a two-period model is...

Growth models with endogenous mortality assume generally that life expectancy is increasing with output per capita and, thus, with individual consumption, whatever its level is. However, empirical evidence supports a U-shaped relationship between consumption and mortality, implying that the...

This paper aims at investigating whether or not a utilitarian social planner should subsidize longevity-enhancing expenditures in an economy with a pay-as-you-go pension system. For that purpose, a two-period overlapping-generations model is developed, in which the probability of survival to the...

Whereas existing indicators of standards of living neglect the dependence of individual well-being on other people’s welfare, this paper aims at constructing an income-based indicator taking welfare interdependencies into account. For that purpose, an extension of Usher’s longevity-adjusted...