What about the others? Conditional cooperation, climate change perception and ecological actions

Leonardo Becchetti, Gianluigi Conzo and Francesco Salustri

No 274, Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' from Department of Economics - University Roma Tre

Abstract: Climate challenge can be modelled as a multiplayer prisoner’s dilemma where ecological action – e.g., purchasing an electric car or adopting sustainable life-styles – is costly in terms of economic resources, time, and effort. Even though social benefit is maximised with everyone taking ecological actions, no actions from all players is a Nash equilibrium assuming players are self-interested. In this paper we analyse how this ecological dilemma is affected by people’s perception. Using the European Social Survey, we study how urgent the climate threat is perceived by respondents and their beliefs about other countries’ actions. Theoretical predictions suggest that the former increases, while the latter does not affect individual willingness to act ecologically. Our empirical findings however show that both factors positively affect willingness to act. We interpret the positive effect of country action on responsibility to act as conditional cooperation and show that the effect is weaker as social capital increases.

Keywords: climate change; perception; ecological actions; social dilemma; conditional cooperation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 Q54 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37
Date: 2023-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-eur, nep-exp and nep-gth
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Working Paper: What about the others? Conditional cooperation, climate change perception and ecological actions (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0274

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