Growth, Environment and Uncertain Future Preferences.

The attitude of future generations towards environmental assets could be different from ours, and it is necessary to take into account explicitly this possibility in the current debate about environmental policy. The question we address here is : should uncertainty about future preferences lead to a more conservative attitude towards environment ? We show that in general it is not the case when preferences are non-separable between consumption and environmental quality. Only separable preferences, or an uncertainty about the time at which preferences could change associated with specific characteristics of the economy, could justify a more conservative attitude from now.