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On strategic ignorance of environmental harm and social norms
HUI Res AB, Stockholm, Sweden.;Univ Wyoming, USA.
Univ Wyoming, USA.
Univ Wyoming, USA.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3757-959X
Lund Univ; Univ Copenhagen, Denmark.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8608-7976
2014 (English)In: Revue d' Economie politique, ISSN 0373-2630, E-ISSN 2105-2883, Vol. 124, no 2, p. 195-214Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Are people strategically ignorant of the negative externalities their activities cause the environment? Herein we examine if people avoid costless information on those externalities and use ignorance as an excuse to reduce pro-environmental behavior. We develop a theoretical framework in which people feel internal pressure ("guilt") from causing harm-to the environment (e.g., emitting carbon dioxide) as well as external pressure to conform to the social norm for pro-environmental behavior (e.g., offsetting carbon emissions). Our model predicts that people may benefit from avoiding information on their harm to the environment, and that they use ignorance as an excuse to engage in less pro-environmental behavior. It also predicts that the cost of ignorance increases if people can learn about the social norm from the information. We test the model predictions empirically using an experiment combined with a stated-preference survey involving a hypothetical long-distance flight and an option to buy offsets for the flight's carbon footprint. More than half (53 percent) of the subjects choose to ignore information on the carbon footprint alone before deciding their offset purchase, but ignorance significantly decreases (to 29 percent) when the information additionally reveals the share of air travelers who buy carbon offsets. We find evidence that some people use ignorance as an excuse to reduce pro-environmental behavior-ignorance significantly decreases the probability of buying carbon offsets.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2014. Vol. 124, no 2, p. 195-214
Keywords [en]
Climate change, experiment, guilt, social pressure, strategic ignorance
National Category
Economics and Business
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-38498DOI: 10.3917/redp.242.0195ISI: 000338753400004OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-38498DiVA, id: diva2:1603337
Available from: 2021-10-15 Created: 2021-10-15 Last updated: 2021-10-15Bibliographically approved

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Nordström, Jonas

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CiteExportLink to record
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  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • chicago-author-date
  • chicago-note-bibliography
  • Other style
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  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
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  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
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Output format
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  • asciidoc
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