Consumer support for environmental policies: An application to purchases of green cars

Alex Coad (), Peter de Haan and Julia Sophie Woersdorfer

Ecological Economics, 2009, vol. 68, issue 7, 2078-2086

Abstract: This paper focuses on how consumer motivation can be tapped in order to encourage the adoption of cleaner technologies. Consumers are heterogeneous -- they may be guided by intrinsic motivation or extrinsic motivation. While information provision policies (such as the energy label for cars) may be effective in encouraging certain consumers to adopt green cars, financial incentive schemes (such as subsidies or fines) may be more persuasive for extrinsically-motivated consumers. We develop a dynamic theory of adoption of environmental innovations, in which information-provision policies are followed by financial incentives (first 'carrot', then 'stick' incentives). Analysis of a survey dataset of Swiss households observes considerable heterogeneity in terms of support of information-provision or financial incentive policies, in line with our conjectures. Our results will be of particular interest to policymakers interested in guiding consumers towards cleaner technologies.

Keywords: Environmental; policy; Technology; adoption; Technology; diffusion; Intrinsic; motivation; Financial; incentives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (69)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(09)00038-X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Consumer support for environmental policies: An application to purchases of green cars (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:68:y:2009:i:7:p:2078-2086

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().