ABSTRACT
Preferences are prone to change. Yet much effort in environmental economics has been applied to the measurement of static preferences for use in policy. This ‘endogenous preference’ orthodoxy has recently been challenged on at least two fronts. One criticism stems from findings that support the idea of ‘constructed’ preferences in view of exogenous influences (for example Slovic 1995; van den Bergh et al. 2000). A second criticism, with implications for environmental policy, is the emerging tension between the normative goal of sustainability and aggregation of sovereign preferences (for example Common and Perrings 1992). These have led to arguments within ecological economics for policies that will lead to so-called ‘sustainable’ preferences (Norton et al. 1998), although it is uncertain what is needed to achieve such a normative goal.
