Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Vol. 87, No. 2, March, pp. 253–277, 2002 doi:10.1006/obhd.2001.2965, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on Valuing Environmental Outcomes: Preferences for Constant or Improving Sequences Jeffery L. Guyse California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and L. Robin Keller and Thomas Eppel University of California, Irvine Experimental results on individuals’ preferences for temporal sequences of environmental outcomes related to air quality and near-shore ocean water quality are compared with preferences for sequences of health and monetary outcomes. Generally, grad- uate business student participants gave significantly lower rat- ings to environmental and health sequences (with equal means) that worsened over time, relative to the ratings they gave to sequences that either remained the same or improved over time. This pattern was reversed by the participants when they faced sequences of monetary payments. This preference structure held for both short (5-year) and long (50-year) time horizons, and it was confirmed with choice data. A model proposed by Loewen- stein and Prelec for the valuation of sequences of outcomes was applied to the current data set and compared to the traditional This work is funded under EPA Grant R826611-01-0 to UC Irvine under Principal Investigator L. Robin Keller with subcontract to Decision Insights under Thomas Eppel. Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles (the Annual UCLA/UCI/USC Current Research in OR/OM Conference), UC Irvine, Tulane University, Virginia Tech, The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and The Darden Graduate School of Management at the University of Virginia, as well as at the INFORMS Spring 1999 conference in Cincinnati and the INFORMS Fall 1999 conference in Philadelphia. The authors thank R. Duncan Luce and the conference and seminar participants for helpful comments, as well as UCI MBA students Rong “Elaine” Zhang and Michael Ryslaarsdam for outstanding research assistance. The helpful comments of the anonymous referees are much appreciated. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Jeffery L. Guyse, Technology and Operations Management, College of Business Administration, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA 91768. E-mail: JLGuyse@csupomona.edu. 253 0749-5978/01 $35.00  2001 Elsevier Science (USA) All rights reserved.