Eco-Labels: Modeling the Consumer Side

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-207
Author(s):  
Klaas van 't Veld

The theoretical literature analyzing eco-label programs has focused mainly on how intricate interactions between firms, eco-label certifiers, and regulators shape these programs’ economic and environmental outcomes. Far less attention has been paid to the consumer side, which has typically been modeled very simply. Meanwhile, empirical researchers in behavioral economics, social psychology, and market research have accumulated a large body of empirical evidence that paints a rich, complex picture of that consumer. In this review, I survey a range of these empirical findings, as well as attempts by theorists to incorporate them in their models. The survey is organized around three themes: ( a) varieties of consumer ignorance, ( b) context dependence of consumer motivations, and ( c) motivational spillover effects across time and people. I also touch on the relative importance of private and public benefits of eco-label programs and on the debate over whether the private benefits should even be counted in welfare.

Author(s):  
Isabela Mares ◽  
Lauren E. Young

In many recent democracies, candidates compete for office using illegal strategies to influence voters. In Hungary and Romania, local actors including mayors and bureaucrats offer access to social policy benefits to voters who offer to support their preferred candidates, and they threaten others with the loss of a range of policy and private benefits for voting the “wrong” way. These quid pro quo exchanges are often called clientelism. How can politicians and their accomplices get away with such illegal campaigning in otherwise democratic, competitive elections? When do they rely on the worst forms of clientelism that involve threatening voters and manipulating public benefits? This book uses a mixed method approach to understand how illegal forms of campaigning including vote buying and electoral coercion persist in two democratic countries in the European Union. It argues that clientelistic strategies must be disaggregated based on whether they use public or private resources, and whether they involve positive promises or negative threats and coercion. The authors document that the type of clientelistic strategies that candidates and brokers use varies systematically across localities based on their underlying social coalitions, and also show that voters assess and sanction different forms of clientelism in different ways. Voters glean information about politicians’ personal characteristics and their policy preferences from the clientelistic strategies these candidates deploy. Most voters judge candidates who use clientelism harshly. So how does clientelism, including its most odious coercive forms, persist in democratic systems? This book suggests that politicians can get away with clientelism by using forms of it that are in line with the policy preferences of constituencies whose votes they need. Clientelistic and programmatic strategies are not as distinct as previous studies have argued.


2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Sugata Marjit ◽  
Reza Oladi ◽  
Punarjit Roychowdhury

AbstractMotivated by recent insights from behavioral economics and social psychology, we present a theory of trade that seeks to explain inter-industry trade between countries that are similar in their production sides, but differ in their income distribution. By assuming status-dependent preferences that are non-homothetic, we show that income inequality differential can be a basis for inter-industry trade between otherwise similar economies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Geiger

This article is devoted to the issue of operationalizing and empirically measuring the development of behavioral economics, focusing on trends in the academic literature. The main research goal is to provide a quantitative, bibliometric assessment to answer the question of whether the relative importance of behavioral economics has increased over the past decades. After an introduction and a short summary of the history of behavioral economics, several studies are laid out and evaluated. The results generally provide a quantitative confirmation of the story of a rise of behavioral economics that can be found in the literature, and add some notable additional insights.


Author(s):  
Gabriela Carrasco ◽  
Eric Kinnamon

Current behavioral economics/game theory and social psychology literature have been captivated by the idea of altruism and egoism. In large part, these two disciplines have tried to determine the foundation of selfish and selfless behavior, without much result. The current chapter examines the root issues associated with this inquiry and argues for a shift in attention towards factors associated with cooperation. As such, empirical research from both disciplines is presented to show the advancements in relation to identification of these factors. Additionally, the authors offer a possible solution to the fractured literature in the form Weber, Kopelman, and Messick's (2004) dual process model in an effort to merge findings from both disciplines in an attempt progress this line of research.


Author(s):  
Gabriela Carrasco ◽  
Eric Kinnamon

Current behavioral economics/game theory and social psychology literature have been captivated by the idea of altruism and egoism. In large part, these two disciplines have tried to determine the foundation of selfish and selfless behavior, without much result. The current chapter examines the root issues associated with this inquiry and argues for a shift in attention towards factors associated with cooperation. As such, empirical research from both disciplines is presented to show the advancements in relation to identification of these factors. Additionally, the authors offer a possible solution to the fractured literature in the form Weber, Kopelman, and Messick's (2004) dual process model in an effort to merge findings from both disciplines in an attempt progress this line of research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire van Teunenbroek ◽  
René Bekkers ◽  
Bianca Beersma

People are often influenced by information about other people’s behavior, that is, social information. Social information is frequently used by practitioners hoping to increase charitable giving, while the precise mechanisms through which social information works are unknown. We conducted a systematic literature review of 35 studies reporting on the effects of social information on charitable giving. We show that several studies report no or even negative effects and that a theoretical understanding of social information effects is lacking. We integrate the empirical findings in the wider fields of social psychology and behavioral economics and propose an integrative theoretical model. The model includes four mediators and three moderators that can explain positive and negative effects of social information. This theoretical framework can assist researchers to obtain a deeper understanding of social information and support practitioners in implementing giving tools in donation campaigns.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Ryan Brutger ◽  
Brian Rathbun

Abstract American politicians repeatedly and strenuously invoke concerns about fairness when pitching their trade policies to their constituents, unsurprisingly since fairness is one of the most fundamental and universal moral concepts. Yet studies to date on public opinion about trade have not been designed in such a way that they test whether fairness is important, nor whether the mass public applies fairness standards impartially. Drawing on findings in social psychology and behavioral economics, we develop and find evidence for an “asymmetric fairness” argument. In a national survey of Americans, we find strong evidence that fairness, conceived in terms of equality, is crucial for understanding support for potential trade deals and support for renegotiating existing ones. Americans view as most fair and most preferable outcomes in which concessions and benefits are equal across countries, especially when those equal benefits match productivity. However, we find that Americans have an egoistically biased sense of fairness, responding particularly negatively to any outcome that leaves the United States relatively worse off—a sense of injustice that does not extend to the same degree to relative gains for Americans.


2019 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 244-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Krajewski

This publication focuses on defining the legal nature of the constructions of public-private partnership and administrative agreements under different legal systems, with particular emphasis on Polish regulations. Due to complex changes within the concept of public administration, alternative methods of its operation gradually appear. Unification of European legal structures and global socio-economic innovations are an impulse for the analysis of methods that allow adapting to the marketization of public tasks. The aim of the author is to assess the effectiveness of a hybrid forms of public-private partnership and administrative agreement combining the features of private and public law, based on the evaluation of doctrine and jurisprudence. Solutions taken from Polish legal acts on local government and the practice of public institutionsreflect the challenging problem of multilayeredness of obligations undertaken by aforementioned form. Extracting the conclusions from market research and cited government reports allows to formulate postulates de lege ferenda and accurate diagnosis of the activities of modern administration.


Episteme ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Frost-Arnold

AbstractSince anonymous agents can spread misinformation with impunity, many people advocate for greater accountability for internet speech. This paper provides a veritistic argument that accountability mechanisms can cause significant epistemic problems for internet encyclopedias and social media communities. I show that accountability mechanisms can undermine both the dissemination of true beliefs and the detection of error. Drawing on social psychology and behavioral economics, I suggest alternative mechanisms for increasing the trustworthiness of internet communication.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Agranov ◽  
Anastasia Buyalskaya

Private and public organizations are interested in finding effective ways to reduce crime and promote ethical behavior without investing heavy resources into monitoring and compliance. In this paper, we experimentally study how revealing different information about a fine distribution affects deterrence of an undesirable behavior. We use a novel incentive-compatible elicitation method to observe subjects lying (the undesirable behavior) and quantify the extent to which this behavior responds to information structures. We find that punishment schemes that communicate only partial information (the minimum fine in particular) are more effective than full information schemes at deterring lying. We explore the mechanism driving this result and link it to subjects’ beliefs about their own versus the average expected fine in treatments with partial information. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis.


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