Utility functionals with nonpaternalistic intergenerational altruism
Abstract The purpose of the paper is twofold. The first purpose is to investigate the conditions for the existence and uniqueness of stationary utility functionals which embody a two-way non-paternalistic intergenerational altruism. The specific forms of the utility functionals are also derived in the linear case. The second purpose is to investigate whether these functionals can generate consistently optimum distribution programs. Using a simple overlapping generations framework, it is shown that the answer to this question is negative as long as the younger generation's utility is given any weight in each period's objective functional.