Thinking About the Future

Abstract

The current “win-lose” versus “win-win” debate on the relationship between economic competitiveness and environmental protection is biased toward win-lose by a narrow focus on the economic interests of a specific actor. When economic interests are broadened to include the interests of other parties, especially other parties in future generations, the opportunity to create aggregate value becomes more apparent. The intergenerational perspective enables us to see that in the long-run, economic and environmental interests often converge as resources are transferred across generations. The intergenerational perspective is particularly useful in highlighting the appropriateness of adopting this broader understanding of economic interests because the relationship between the economic interests of various actors often only becomes apparent over a period of time spanning across several generations. There are a number of factors that prevent us from taking this intergenerational perspective, which leads to intergenerational discounting. Recent research suggests ways of dealing with obstacles to thinking in intergenerational terms.