Sustainability Traps: Patience and Innovation

Abstract

This paper argues that the joint relation between long-term orientation, environmental quality and innovation plays a key role in explaining the economic and the environmental dimension of sustainability. In our model multiple equilibria of economic development and environmental quality can arise due to a trade-off between the demand for innovation that promotes sustainability, and the ephemeral pleasure from polluting manufacturing that impedes it. Additional to traditional policies such as aid and technology transfers, policies that target behavioral changes through environmental protection may provide a double-dividend of economic and environmental sustainability through an environment-patience-innovation channel.