This book discusses imaginary future generations and how current decision-making will influence those future generations. Markets and democracies focus on the present and therefore tend to make us forget that we are living in the present, with ancestors preceding and descendants succeeding us. Markets are excellent devices to equate supply and demand in the short term, but not for allocating resources between current and future generations, since future generations do not exist yet. Democracy is also not “applicable” for future generations, since citizens vote for candidates who will serve members of their, i.e., the current, generation. In order to overcome these shortcomings, the authors discusses imaginary future generations and future ministries in the context of current decision-making in fields such as the environment, urban management, forestry, water management, and finance. The idea of imaginary future generations comes from the Native American Iroquois, who had strong norms that compelled them to incorporate the interests of people seven generations ahead when making decisions.
Tatsuyoshi Saijo received his master's degree in Economics from Hitotsubashi University in 1978 and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1985. He was an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara (1986–1991); Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and then a Professor at the Institute of Socio-Economic Planning, University of Tsukuba (1988–1996); Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center in Political Economy, Washington University in St. Louis (1989); Professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University (1995–2013); Visiting Scholar at the Rational Choice Center, Department of Economics, Duke University (1999); Faculty Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (2001–2004); Research Associate at the California Institute of Technology (2002–2003); Professor at the Research Institute for Sustainability Science, Osaka University (2006–2010); Research Professor and then specially appointed Professor at the Center for Environmental Innovation Design for Sustainability, Osaka University (2011–2015); and Professor at the Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University (2015–2016) before assuming his present position at the Kochi University of Technology and the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN). He has been a member of the Science Council of Japan since 2014, and was Project Leader for Experimental Social Science at the Ministry of Education, Japan (2007–2013) and Vice-President of the Economic Science Association (2010–2014).
