The influence of collective action on the demand for voluntary climate change mitigation in hypothetical and real situations

Bodo Sturm and Reinhard Uehleke

No 15-045, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: In this experiment, we investigate determinants of the individual demand for voluntary climate change mitigation. Subjects decide between a cash prize and an allowance from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme for one ton of CO2 that will be deleted afterwards. We vary the incentives of the decision situation in which we distinguish between real monetary incentives and a hypothetical decision situation with and without a cheap talk script. Furthermore, decisions were implemented either as purely individual or as a collective action using majority voting. We observe a significant hypothetical bias in the demand for voluntary climate change mitigation. In case of the individual decision situation this bias is caused solely by subjects with low income. Collective decision making affects demand positively in the hypothetical decision situation only.

Keywords: demand for voluntary climate change mitigation; public goods; collective action; hypothetical bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 Q51 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-cdm, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:15045

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