We test the assumption that harvesting timber for energy production is assumed to have a carbon-neutral effect on climate. Our dynamic multiple-harvest Faustmann optimal rotation model of the Northern Forest and energy production in New Hampshire indicates that it is inappropriate to assume...

Recent studies suggest that direct preferences regarding investment gains and losses may significantly affect people’s behavior in financial markets. The present paper shows that this hypothesis has striking implications for the choice of discount rates in cost-benefit analysis. The paper...

A deontological (or "Kantian") approach to intergenerational fairness suggests that sustainability criteria should be imposed as prior constraints on the maximization of social preferences concerning the distribution of welfare between present and future generations. In particular, it is...

This paper explores the relationship between sustainability concepts and contractarian principles of distributional fairness. A commitment to equality of opportunity between contemporaries entails that life opportunities should be nondiminishing from generation to generation. Defining...

ABSTRACT. Economic models typically assume that individual wants are determined by forces exogenous to the economic system. Social psychology and consumer research, in contrast, support the view that the perceived benefits of goods and services are strongly affected by endogenously determined...

This paper examines the links between environmental taxes and distortionary taxation in a dynamic model of climate change and economic growth. Under first-best conditions, labor and capital would remain untaxed, and carbon dioxide emissions would be taxed at a rate equal to the present-value...

Economic studies of climate change commonly discount the future at a rate equal to the long-run return on corporate stocks. Stock market returns, however, are dominated by a risk premium, while climate change mitigation measures would reduce important risks to future welfare. Drawing on the...

In deliberative valuation, a small group of selected persons explores the values that should guide collective decisions through a process of reasoned discourse. Proponents argue that deliberative techniques enhance the effectiveness and perceived legitimacy of policy making by facilitating...