Optimal Environmental Management in the Presence of Irreversibilities

We consider an environment of a fixed size that can be converted to another use. This conversion can be made in steps, but it is irreversible. The future benefits (per unit) from the original use, and from the alternative use, follow a diffusion process. For a fairly general case, we show that the value function must be the unique (viscosity) solution to the associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. We also exhibit several properties of the solution for the case of constant relative risk aversion between 0 and 1, and a loglinear diffusion for the benefits. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C61,D90,Q30.