Where do preferences come from? What determines their properties? Though traditionally reluctant to ask such questions, economists have recently turned to evolutionary models for answers. We focus on intertemporal preferences here, arising out of the evolutionary implications of different

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In this article, we show how the degree of risk aversion, discounting, and preference for intertemporal substitution for a natural resource manager can be structurally estimated within a recursive utility framework. We focus on the management of a reservoir in California, and test the data

Different topologies on the space of certain consumption patterns in a continuous time setting are discussed. A family of topologies which give an economically reasonable sense of closeness and have an appropriate intertemporal flavor is suggested. Strictly concave time-additive utihty functions

We derive an inter-temporal theory of choice, in the spirit of Kreps and Porteus (1978), where decision makers have incomplete preferences. This can be used to model indecisiveness as well as unforeseen contingencies. The key to our approach is a time consistency condition and therefore

This paper shows how to use wealth, consumption and shadow prices to identify intertemporal preferences. The paper shows that identification of intertemporal preferences, under an additively sepa-rable intertemporal model, can be obtained from four elements: op-timal consumption function, shadow

In this paper we show how the degree of risk aversion, discounting, and preference for intertemporal substitution for a natural resource manager can be structurally estimated within a recursive utility framework. We focus on the management of Oroville Reservoir, in Northern California, and test

Does experimental evidence of the common difference effect imply that intertemporal preferences are time inconsistent? Do these features of choice suggest inherent characteristics of preferences, or could they be traced to an underlying factor that shapes the environment? The effect of uncertain

W. Woolley for their advice, assistance, and support of this research. We thank seminar participants

Where do preferences come from? What determines their properties? Though traditionally reluctant to ask such questions, economists have recently turned to evolutionary models for answers. We focus on intertemporal preferences here, arising out of the evolutionary implications of different