The author analyzes the optimal investment in environmental protection in a model of an infinite series of non-overlapping hyperbolically discounting agents. He shows that without a commitment mechanism society is eventually stuck in a situation where all agents prefer further investment in the...

In this paper I extend the well known result that a hyperbolically discounting agent postpones costs into the future. If society has hyperbolic intertemporal preferences, it may be optimal from an ex ante point of view to postpone structural change from a polluting to a non polluting production...