Intergenerational equity

Intergenerational equity in economic, psychological, and sociological contexts, is the concept or idea of fairness or justice between generations. The concept can be applied to fairness in dynamics between children, youth, adults and seniors, in terms of treatment and interactions. It can also be applied to fairness between generations currently living and generations yet to be born. Intergenerational equity in economic, psychological, and sociological contexts, is the concept or idea of fairness or justice between generations. The concept can be applied to fairness in dynamics between children, youth, adults and seniors, in terms of treatment and interactions. It can also be applied to fairness between generations currently living and generations yet to be born. Conversations about intergenerational equity occur across several fields. It is often discussed in public economics, especially with regard to transition economics, social policy, and government budget-making. Many cite the growing U.S. national debt as an example of intergenerational inequity, as future generations will shoulder the consequences. Intergenerational equity is also explored in environmental concerns, including sustainable development, global warming and climate change. The continued depletion of natural resources that has occurred in the past century will likely be a significant burden for future generations. Intergenerational equity is also discussed with regard to standards of living, with the focus falling on inequities in the living standards experienced by people of different ages and generations. Intergenerational equity issues also arise in the arenas of elderly care and social justice. Since the first recorded debt issuance in Sumaria in 1796 BC, one of the penalties for failure to repay a loan has been debt bondage. In some instances, this repayment of financial debt with labor included the debtor's children, essentially condemning the debtor family to perpetual slavery. About one millennium after written debt contracts were created, the concept of debt forgiveness appears in the Old Testament, called Jubilee (Leviticus 25), and in Greek law when Solon introduces Seisachtheia. Both of these historical examples of debt forgiveness involved freeing children from slavery caused by their parents' debt. While slavery is illegal in all countries today, North Korea has a policy called, 'Three Generations of Punishment' which has been documented by Shin Dong-hyuk and used as a moral paragon of punishing children for parents' mistakes. Stanley Druckenmiller and Geoffrey Canada have applied this concept (calling it 'Generational Theft') to the large increase in government debt being left by the Baby Boomers to their children. In the context of institutional investment management, intergenerational equity is the principle that an endowed institution's spending rate must not exceed its after-inflation rate of compound return, so that investment gains are spent equally on current and future constituents of the endowed assets. This concept was originally set out in 1974 by economist James Tobin, who wrote that, 'The trustees of endowed institutions are the guardians of the future against the claims of the present. Their task in managing the endowment is to preserve equity among generations.'in terms of an economical context. Intergenerational equity refers to relationship that a particular family has on resources. An example is the forest-dwelling civilians in Papua New Guinea, who for generations have lived in a certain part of the forest which thus becomes their land. The adult population sell the trees for palm oil to make money. If they cannot make a sustainable development on managing their resources, their next or future generations will lose this resource.