An Efficiency Argument for Sustainable Use

Joaquim Silvestre
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Joaquim Silvestre: University of California

Chapter 2 in Property Relations, Incentives and Welfare, 1997, pp 43-68 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Sustainability is often viewed as a moral obligation to future generations. Robert Solow (1993), for example, writes: The way I have put this, and I meant to do so, emphasizes that sustainability is about distributional equity. It is about who gets what. It is about the sharing of well-being between present people and future people. (p.182) Sustainability is an injunction not to satisfy ourselves by impoverishing our successors. (p.181) On the other hand, Solow finds the destruction of natural resources acceptable as long as it is compensated by investment in other assets, because ‘goods and services can be substituted by one another’ (p.181).

Keywords: Public Good; Future Generation; Social Welfare Function; Private Good; Social Surplus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-25287-9_2

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