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

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 test for the role of sustainability concerns, this study analyzes the time sensitivity of social preferences for preservation policies of adaptation to 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 policy-making in the face of time-persistent environmental problems, by pointing out that, to be welfare-maximizing, interventions also need to be sustainable.