Personal norms of sustainability and their impact on management – The case of rangeland management in semi-arid regions

Roland Olbrich (), Martin Quaas and Stefan Baumgaertner
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Roland Olbrich: Department of Sustainability Sciences and Department of Economics, Leuphana University of Lueneburg, Germany
Stefan Baumgaertner: Department of Sustainability Sciences and Department of Economics, Leuphana University of Lueneburg, Germany
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Stefan Baumgärtner

No 209, Working Paper Series in Economics from University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics

Abstract: We empirically study personal norms of sustainability, conceptualized according to the normactivation theory and operationalized under the notion of strong ecological-economic sustainability, for commercial cattle farmers in semi-arid rangelands of Namibia, a system that is subject to extensive degradation. We characterize farmers’ personal norms, study their determinants, and analyze their impact on actual management based on the dual-preferences model. We find personal norms of sustainability that are heterogeneous across farmers, but vary little with socio-demographic or environmental characteristics. We find no evidence for a significant impact of personal norms on actual management behavior, which may be due to farmers not feeling capable for averting adverse long-term consequences of their management. This may contribute to the observed degradation of rangelands in Namibia.

Keywords: commercial cattle farming; Namibia; norm-activation theory; personal norms; dual-preferences model; semi-arid rangelands; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 Q12 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2011-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env and nep-evo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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