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On strategic ignorance of environmental harm and social norms

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Author

Summary, in English

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.

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

195-214

Publication/Series

Revue d'Economie Politique

Volume

124

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Editions Dalloz

Topic

  • Economics

Keywords

  • Climate change
  • experiment
  • guilt
  • social pressure
  • strategic ignorance

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2105-2883