Human development and economic sustainability

This paper attempts to integrate the concern for human development in the present with that in the future. In arguing for sustainable human development, it appeals to the notion of ethical universalism-an elementary demand for impartiality of claims-applied within and between generations. Economic sustainability is often seen as a matter of intergenerational equity, but the specification of what is to be sustained is not always straightforward. The addendum explores the relationship between distributional equity, sustainable development, optimal growth, and pure time preference. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.