Sustainability, limited substitutability, and non-constant social discount rates

Christian Traeger

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2011, vol. 62, issue 2, 215-228

Abstract: The paper shows how limited substitutability in consumption between different classes of goods affects the magnitude and time development of social discount rates. It decomposes the discount rates into an absolute growth and a relative growth or substitutability effect. The paper relates between-good and intertemporal substitutability to the notions of weak and strong sustainability. It analyzes under which circumstances low as opposed to high between-good substitutability increases the weights given to long-run environmental services.

Keywords: Environmental; discount; rate; Hyperbolic; Limited; substitutability; Non-constant; discounting; Project; evaluation; Social; discount; factor; Social; discount; rate; Strict; sustainability; Strong; sustainability; Weak; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (60)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069611000349
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Sustainability, Limited Substitutability and Non-Constant Social Discount Rates (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:62:y:2011:i:2:p:215-228

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is currently edited by M.A. Cole, A. Lange, D.J. Phaneuf, D. Popp, M.J. Roberts, M.D. Smith, C. Timmins, Q. Weninger and A.J. Yates

More articles in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().