Climate change and individual behavior

René Bernard, Panagiota Tzamourani and Michael Weber

VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: This paper studies the causal effect of providing information about climate change on individuals' willingness to pay to offset carbon emissions in a randomized control trial. Receiving truthful information about ways to reduce CO2 emissions increases individuals' willingness to pay for CO2 offsetting relative to the control group. Individuals receiving information about the behavior of peers react similarly to those receiving information about scientific research. Indi-viduals' responses vary depending on their socio-demographic characteristics and also along a rich set of prior beliefs and concerns regarding climate change. In a follow-up survey, we study the endogenous information acquisition of survey participants and show that individuals choose information that aligns with their views. Individuals who choose to receive information about climate change have a higher willingness to pay for CO2 offsets.

Keywords: Climate change; information treatment; willingness to pay; CO2 compensation; information acquisition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 D83 D91 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022, Revised 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/249768/1/2022-02-11-dkp-01-data.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Climate change and individual behavior (2022)
Working Paper: Climate Change and Individual Behavior (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242592

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