Taking off from a 2007 Gresham lecture “Stealing the Silver: How We Take From The Dispossessed, The Poor and Our Own Children”, Michael intends to further explore equitable inter-generational economics. Starting with natural resources and long-lived infrastructure projects, then moving on to savings, business and fashion, we see a variety of commercial arrangements.
But which ones are long-lasting? Which arrangements are fair to future generations? There are successful examples of inter-generational transfers from engineering projects to sovereign wealth funds, and we can set out some underlying principles for developing these structures. Michael will outline how these principles interact with ethics, politics and discount rates, concluding with some views on what long finance structures may need to underpin equitable inter-generational transfers, the long commerce.