On the interrelation between the consumption of impure public goods and the provision of direct donations: Theory and empirical evidence

Andreas Lange, Claudia Schwirplies and Andreas Ziegler

Resource and Energy Economics, 2017, vol. 47, issue C, 72-88

Abstract: This paper investigates the extent to which the possibility of direct donations to a public good may substitute an individual’s consumption of impure public goods. Theoretically, we derive conditions under which donations may serve as substitutes or complements for the consumption of private and impure public goods. We then empirically test our predictions in the context of climate change mitigation using data from online-representative surveys among citizens in Germany and the U.S. Our empirical results indicate a rather complementary relationship between offsetting and other pro-environmental activities in both countries, although individuals substitute certain clean consumption alternatives by offsetting if they lay a sufficiently large weight on environmental preference or if offsetting is perceived to be relatively effective in providing the public good climate protection.

Keywords: Impure public goods; Direct donations to public goods; Pro-environmental activities; Carbon offsetting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0928765515300440
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:resene:v:47:y:2017:i:c:p:72-88

DOI: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2016.11.002

Access Statistics for this article

Resource and Energy Economics is currently edited by J. F. Shogren and S. Smulders

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