Environmental concerns, income inequality, and purchase of environmentally-friendly products: A longitudinal study of U.S. counties (2010-2017)

Kunyuan Qiao and Glen Dowell

Research Policy, 2022, vol. 51, issue 4

Abstract: Environmentally-friendly products are being introduced at a rapid pace, making it critical that we understand the conditions that affect the degree to which they are accepted in a market. We investigate how two community characteristics—environmental concerns and income inequality—shape the demand for environmentally-friendly products and how the community influence depends upon the product's degree of visibility. We test our hypotheses by examining conspicuous purchases of electric vehicle (EV) and inconspicuous energy-saving equipment installment for U.S. counties from 2010 to 2017. We find that (1) environmental concerns are positively related to inconspicuous environmentally-friendly purchases only and (2) income inequality negatively affects inconspicuous environmentally-friendly purchases, but has a more positive influence on conspicuous purchases. Moreover, we find a positive interactive effect of environmental concerns and income inequality on inconspicuous environmentally-friendly purchases. Our study provides a more nuanced understanding of how environmental concerns and income inequality influence the acceptance of environmentally-friendly products. These findings can inform the management of policies related to environmental protection and eco-innovations, calling for attention to these community characteristics as well as the important attribute of environmentally-friendly product—i.e., visibility.

Keywords: Environmental concerns; Income inequality; Environmentally-friendly product; Visibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733321002353
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:respol:v:51:y:2022:i:4:s0048733321002353

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2021.104443

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

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