Do we care about sustainability? An analysis of time sensitivity of social preferences under environmental time-persistent effects

Michela Faccioli, Nick Hanley, Catalina M. Torres Figuerola and Antoni Riera Font
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Antoni Riera Font: Department of Applied Economics at the University of the Balearic Islands.

No 2015-17, Discussion Papers in Environment and Development Economics from University of St. Andrews, School of Geography and Sustainable Development

Abstract: Environmental cost-benefit analysis has traditionally assumed that environmental policies’ social benefits are sensitive to the timing of the improvement. Indeed, it has relied on the idea that policies’ outcomes, taking place at different moments in the future depending on the intervention’s performance or on environmental dynamics, are preferred if occurring earlier. However, this assumption needs to be verified as it may lead to consider as socially desirable policies being less so. This is especially important when interventions aim at counteracting time-persistent environmental problems, whose impacts occur in the long-and very long-term, respectively involving the present and future generations. In this framework, with the objective to identify the role of sustainability concerns, this study analyzes the time sensitivity of social preferences for preservation policies of adaptation to time-persistent climate change stresses. Results have shown that preferences are time insensitive due to sustainability issues, as current generations equally care about nature preservation in the long-term, when they will enjoy it, and in the very long-term, when future generations will. These outcomes are relevant to better inform decision-making in the design of policies in the face of time-persistent environmental problems, by pointing out that, to be welfare-maximizing, interventions also need to be sustainable.

Keywords: Time-persistent environmental problems; sustainability; preference analysis; choice experiment; time sensitivity; climate change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D6 D90 Q51 Q54 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2015-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env and nep-res
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Working Paper: Do we care about sustainability? An analysis of time sensitivity of social preferences under environmental time-persistent effects (2015)
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