Abstract
There is still no consensus on how to assess intergenerational allocations when endogenous population size is considered. The two most prominent criteria – total and average utilitarianism – have, respectively, assigned too much or too little weight on population size which resulted in highly controversial implications. In this thesis, I study the policy implications of fertilitarianism, a new alternative population axiology introduced by Ho and Piacquadio (2022). Fertilitarianism identifies a new balance between the well-being of individuals and the size of generations by respecting parents' fertility preferences. The consideration of parents' preferences instead of utility regarding fertility is highlighted and it is the key difference between this proposal and existing axiologies. I discuss the welfare criteria in-depth to show its intuition. Next, I compare fertiltiarianism with total and average utilitarianism using a simple Diamond-type model of growth and endogenous population in a steady state analysis. The fertilitarian analysis shows that parents are more willing to trade off consumption for more fertility if their consumption increases. Finally, I evaluate potential policy suggestions and their implications.