 John Rawls was the first to develop a systematic account of obligations to future people as a central element of a theory of justice (Rawls 1971, 1999, especially section 44; Rawls 1993: 274; Rawls 2001: especially sections 49.2 and 3). Rawls proposes a principle of “just savings”. Long before Rawls Frank Ramsey developed a model for determining the optimal savings within a utilitarian framework (Ramsey 1928; see entry on  Ramsey and intergenerational welfare economics)  disregarding distributional considerations. Following Sidgwick (1907 [1981: 414]) Ramsey (1928: 261) as well as Rawls (1971: 263) and Parfit (1984: appendix F) reject what is called “pure time discounting”, that is, giving less weight to the well-being or legitimate claims of future people just because they live in the future. A long-standing issue in economics is how loans and taxes for financing public policies compare in terms of the burdens imposed on future generations (see e.g., Pigou 1920: ch. ix; Viner 1920; Mishan 1963). Provisions to protect the welfare interests of future generations have been in place since ancient times (Auerbach 1995: 27–35; Wissowa et al. 1937: vol. xi, 2011, 2014, 2021).