Economic Development and Determinants of Environmental Concern

Michael Dorsch

Social Science Quarterly, 2014, vol. 95, issue 4, 960-977

Abstract: type="main">

This article examines the extent to which individual-level determinants of environmental concern in underdeveloped economies differ from those in advanced economies.

To measure environmental concern, I use survey responses to environmental questions asked in 40 countries from the 2005–2008 wave of the World Values Survey. My econometric analysis tests the extent to which individual-level determinants of environmental concern are conditional upon the level of national economic development.

I find that proxies for objective environmental problems do not explain environmental concern at any level of development. Furthermore, in both advanced and underdeveloped economies, environmental concern is determined by subjective value orientations, but the effect is stronger in the advanced economies.

The findings reinforce the notion that environmentalism is value driven and support a generalized interpretation of postmaterialism in which the relevance of subjective values for explaining environmental concern increases as countries develop.

Date: 2014
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