Total Net Benefit and the Quantity of Life: A Query

Abstract

When it is expected that different population levels will be associated with alternative land uses, cost—benefit analysts could adopt three treatments of benefit. (1) Only the benefit of population common to all land uses is considered. (2) The potential Pareto improvement criterion is adopted, requiring that gainers from any change can compensate losers. (3) Utility weights are used to interpret willingness-to-pay in terms of benefit. Despite the apparent feeling of economists that treatment (1) avoids difficult value judgements, all three treatments raise problems of ascribing preferences to the yet-unborn, and of estimating the total utility of life.