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Discounting and sustainability: towards reconciliation

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  • Richard B. Howarth

Abstract

This paper examines the well-known tension between discounting and sustainability in the long-term management of environmental resources. The paper describes a rights-based ethical framework in which present decision-makers hold a moral duty to ensure that life opportunities are sustained from generation to generation. Maintaining opportunities requires that natural resources must be either conserved or replaced with proven substitutes that provide equivalent services. In this framework, discounting procedures are useful in characterising decision-makers' preferences concerning tradeoffs between costs and benefits that arise at different points in time. Such preferences, however, are trumped by duties to posterity in cases where discounting favours the uncompensated depletion of resource stocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard B. Howarth, 2003. "Discounting and sustainability: towards reconciliation," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 6(1), pages 87-97.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijsusd:v:6:y:2003:i:1:p:87-97
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Hepburn, Cameron J. & Koundouri, Phoebe, 2007. "Recent advances in discounting: Implications for forest economics," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2-3), pages 169-189, August.
    2. Curran, Michael & Kiteme, Boniface & Wünscher, Tobias & Koellner, Thomas & Hellweg, Stefanie, 2016. "Pay the farmer, or buy the land?—Cost-effectiveness of payments for ecosystem services versus land purchases or easements in Central Kenya," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 59-67.
    3. Nelson, Julie A., 2008. "Economists, value judgments, and climate change: A view from feminist economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 441-447, April.
    4. Sneddon, Chris & Howarth, Richard B. & Norgaard, Richard B., 2006. "Sustainable development in a post-Brundtland world," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 253-268, May.
    5. Nelson, J.A., 2013. "Ethics and the economist: What climate change demands of us," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 145-154.
    6. Hampicke, Ulrich, 2011. "Climate change economics and discounted utilitarianism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 45-52.
    7. Jordi Honey-Rosés & Marc Menestrel & Daniel Arenas & Felix Rauschmayer & Julian Rode, 2014. "Enriching Intergenerational Decision-Making with Guided Visualization Exercises," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 122(4), pages 675-680, July.
    8. Cameron Hepburn & Greer Gosnell, 2014. "Evaluating impacts in the distant future: cost–benefit analysis, discounting and the alternatives," Chapters, in: Giles Atkinson & Simon Dietz & Eric Neumayer & Matthew Agarwala (ed.), Handbook of Sustainable Development, chapter 9, pages 140-159, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Maria S. Floro, 2012. "The Crises of Environment and Social Reproduction: Understanding their Linkages," Working Papers 2012-04, American University, Department of Economics.

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