In this article we study the implication of thresholds in preferences. To model this we extend the basic model of John and Pecchenino (1994) by allowing the current level of environmental quality to have a discrete impact on how an agent trades o ff future consumption and environmental quality....

We study how the import of older and more polluting technologies alters the relationship between output and environmental quality in developing countries within a vintage capital framework. Our results show that old technologies prolong the period until which pollution may eventually decrease...