@TechReport{iza:izadps:dp14515,
            	author={Spears, Dean and Zuber, Stéphane},
            	title={Foundations of Utilitarianism under Risk and Variable Population},
            	year={2021},
	month={Jun},
            	institution={Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)},
            	address={Bonn},
            	type={IZA Discussion Paper},
            	number={14515},
            	url={https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp14515},
	abstract={Utilitarianism is the most prominent family of social welfare functions. We present three new axiomatic characterizations of utilitarian (that is, additively separable) social welfare functions in a setting where there is risk over both population size and the welfares of individuals. First, we show that, given uncontroversial basic axioms, Blackorby et al.'s (1998) Expected Critical-Level Generalized Utilitarianism (ECLGU) is equivalent to a new axiom holding that it is better to allocate higher utility-conditional-on-existence to possible people who have a higher probability of existence. 
The other two novel characterizations extend classic axiomatizations of utilitarianism from settings with either social risk or variable-population, considered alone. By considering both social risk and variable population together, we clarify the fundamental normative considerations underlying utilitarian policy evaluation.
},
	keywords={expected critical-level generalized utilitarianism;utilitarianism;population ethics;social risk;prioritarianism},
            }