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Green goods: are they good or bad news for the environment? Evidence from a laboratory experiment on impure public goods

Author

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  • Munro, Alistair
  • Valente, Marieta
Abstract
An impure public good is a commodity that combines public and private characteristics in fixed proportions. Green goods such as dolphin-friendly tuna or green electricity programs provide increasings popular examples of impure goods. We design an experiment to test how the presence of impure public goods affects pro-social behaviour. We set parameters, such that from a theoretical point of view the presence of the impure public good is behaviorally irrelevant. In a baseline setting, where the impure public good provides only small contributions to the public good. We observe that on aggregate pro-social behaviour, defined as total contributions to the public good, is lower in the presence of the impure good. Some individuals do not alter their decisions, but roughly two fifths of subjects make a lower contribution to the public good in the presence of the impure public good. On the contrary, in the case where the impure public good favours the public good component at the expense of private earnings, individuals are unaffected in their behaviour. We conclude that the presence of green goods which have only a small environmental component may reduce pro-environmental behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Munro, Alistair & Valente, Marieta, 2008. "Green goods: are they good or bad news for the environment? Evidence from a laboratory experiment on impure public goods," MPRA Paper 13024, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 14 Jan 2009.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:13024
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    Cited by:

    1. Dorner, Zack, 2019. "A behavioral rebound effect," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    2. Arnab Mitra & Michael R. Moore, 2018. "Green Electricity Markets as Mechanisms of Public-Goods Provision: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(1), pages 45-71, September.
    3. Paul Pecorino, 2013. "Monopolistic Competition and Public Good Provision with By‐product Firms," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 875-893, December.
    4. Dirk Engelmann & Alistair Munro & Marieta Valente, 2011. "On the behavioural relevance of optional and mandatory impure public goods: results from a laboratory experiment," NIMA Working Papers 45, Núcleo de Investigação em Microeconomia Aplicada (NIMA), Universidade do Minho.
    5. Qinxin Guo & Enci Wang & Yongyou Nie & Junyi Shen, 2021. "Revisiting the impact of impure public goods on consumers’ prosocial behavior: A lab experiment in Shanghai," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 51-66, January.
    6. Friedrichsen, Jana & Engelmann, Dirk, 2018. "Who cares about social image?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 110, pages 61-77.
    7. Danae Arroyos-Calvera & Rebecca McDonald & Daniel Read & Bruce Rigal, 2020. "Unpacking moral wiggle room: Information preferences and not information itself predict generosity," Discussion Papers 20-19, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    8. Alistair Munro & Marieta Valente, 2016. "Green Goods: Are They Good or Bad News for the Environment? Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment on Impure Public Goods," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(2), pages 317-335, October.
    9. Engelmann, Dirk & Munro, Alistair & Valente, Marieta, 2017. "On the behavioural relevance of optional and mandatory impure public goods," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 134-144.
    10. Richard Cornes, 2016. "Aggregative Environmental Games," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 63(2), pages 339-365, February.
    11. Andreas Löschel & Jiansuo Pei & Ran Wang & Bodo Sturm & Wolfgang Buchholz & Zhongxiu Zhao, 2021. "The Demand for Global and Local Environmental Protection: Experimental Evidence from Climate Change Mitigation in Beijing," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 97(1), pages 137-154.
    12. Maria José Montoya Villalobos, 2021. "Green consumption: The impact of trust and pessimism," EconomiX Working Papers 2021-9, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    13. Brumme, Anja, 2019. "Introducing a "green" good: Implications for environmental quality and social welfare," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203655, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Helene Naegele, 2019. "Where Does the Fairtrade Money Go? How Much Consumers Pay Extra for Fairtrade Coffee and How This Value Is Split along the Value Chain," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1783, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    green goods; impure public goods; pro-social behaviour; social norms; experimental economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q50 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - General
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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