Preferences in the Future

John Horowitz ()

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2002, vol. 21, issue 3, 258 pages

Abstract: Environmental economics has been much occupied with “the discount rate,” which is the value of future costs and benefits relative to present costsor benefits. But at least as important is the question of whatshould be discounted, that is, what the value of those future environmentalbenefits is to future generations. This paper analyzes the role for futurepreferences and discusses the state of knowledge. I argue that theappropriate discount rate is the market one, and that the real problemis determining future willingness-to-pay. This approach makes clearerthe connection between discounting and the valuation debate. This paper focuses on two features that have been prominent in that debate:existence value and reference dependence. I argue that thereis a vital connection between the two constructs and that this link yieldsimportant implications for future willingness-to-pay. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2002

Keywords: discount rate; environmental valuation; existence value; future preferences; paternalistic altruism; reference dependence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1014592629514 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:kap:enreec:v:21:y:2002:i:3:p:241-258

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... al/journal/10640/PS2

DOI: 10.1023/A:1014592629514

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental & Resource Economics is currently edited by Ian J. Bateman

More articles in Environmental & Resource Economics from Springer, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().