In this paper, we outline how a future change in consumers’ willingness-to-pay can be accounted for in a consumer welfare effects analysis in antitrust. Key to our solution is the prediction of preferences of new consumers and changing preferences of existing consumers in the future. The dimension of time is inextricably linked with that of sustainability. Taking into account the welfare of future cohorts of consumers, concerns for sustainability can therefore be integrated into the consumer welfare paradigm to a greater extent. As we argue in this paper, it is expedient to consider changes in consumers’ willingness-to-pay, in particular if society undergoes profound changes in such preferences, for example, caused by an increase in generally available information on environmental effects of consumption, and a rising societal awareness about how consumption can have irreversible impacts on the environment. We offer suggestions on how to conceptionalize and operationalize the projection of such consumers’ changing preferences in a “prospective welfare analysis.” This increases the scope of the consumer welfare paradigm and can help to solve conceptual issues regarding the integration of sustainability into antitrust enforcement while keeping consumer surplus as a quantitative gauge.

中文翻译：

---

前瞻性福利分析——扩展支付意愿评估以拥抱可持续发展

在本文中，我们概述了如何在反垄断中的消费者福利效应分析中解释消费者支付意愿的未来变化。我们解决方案的关键是预测新消费者的偏好以及未来现有消费者的偏好变化。时间维度与可持续性维度密不可分。考虑到未来消费者群体的福利，对可持续性的关注因此可以更大程度地融入消费者福利范式中。正如我们在本文中所说，考虑消费者支付意愿的变化是有利的，特别是如果社会在这种偏好方面经历了深刻的变化，例如，由于关于消费对环境影响的普遍可用信息的增加，以及对消费如何对环境产生不可逆转的影响的社会意识不断提高。我们就如何在“前瞻性福利分析”中对这些消费者不断变化的偏好的预测进行概念化和操作提供建议。这扩大了消费者福利范式的范围，有助于解决将可持续性纳入反垄断执法的概念问题，同时将消费者剩余作为量化指标。