Now or Never: Environmental Protection under Hyperbolic Discounting

Artikel

The author analyzes the optimal investment in environmental protection in a model of non-overlapping hyperbolically discounting agents. He shows that, in the long run and in the absence of a commitment device, society is stuck in a situation where all agents prefer further investments, yet no agent invests. This holds no matter whether agents are aware of the time inconsistency of their preferences. As a consequence, awareness of the time-inconsistency problem poses at best a short run remedy. Moreover, such an outcome may be Pareto inefficient and may explain the weak performance of long-run environmental policies.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Journal: Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal ; ISSN: 1864-6042 ; Volume: 3 ; Year: 2009 ; Issue: 2009-12 ; Pages: 1-22 ; Kiel: Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: General‡ ; Environmental Economics: General ; Environmental Economics: Government Policy
• Thema: Environmental policy ; environmental protection ; hyperbolic discounting ; Markov perfect equilibria ; time-inconsistency

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Winkler, Ralph
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
• (wo): Kiel
• (wann): 2009

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: doi:10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2009-12
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/27532
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:45 MEZ