Wait and see? Public preferences for the temporal effectiveness of coastal protection

Under uncertainty about the kind, extent, or time frames of coastal threats, efficient protection requires measures that are effective in time and flexible enough to assure protection even if conditions change over time. Existing protection options are unable to offer both attributes simultaneously, creating a trade-off between short-term and long-term effectiveness in protection choice. This paper investigates the role played by differences in the temporal effectiveness of coastal protection measures in the choice of protection modes. Results from a discrete-choice experiment implemented in Papua New Guinea suggest that respondents have a strong preference for long-term over short-term effectiveness; an urgency to protect cannot be identified. Using incentivized preference measures for patience and risk-aversion as well as sociodemographic controls, we account for taste heterogeneity and validate the robustness of our results.