Abstract
Although it is easy to subscribe to the concept of sustainability, it is well-known that disagreements begin once we try to apply the concept to concrete cases. This paper spells out, in the case of forestry, the features of the concept that lead not only to confusion, about which there is already a vast literature, but also to contradictions among decision models which use a discount rate and government regulations inspired by substainability. Indeed, forestry analysis highlights weaknesses of conventional cost-benefit analysis when it gets involved into intergenerational effects. Sustainability forces this involvement. On the other hand, discounting is an essential condition for optimally allocating resources over time. This paper reconciles intergenerational transfers with discounting through the bequest method. Among other things, the bequest method provides a rationale for various degrees of weak sustainability. The regionalization of the method shows that one of its basic components, the contingent valuation method (to specify the bequest), works even better at the regional level, while another basic component, partial equilibrium analysis, does not appreciably hinder national or global optimization.
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