Generational Responsibility in Consumption as a Response to Global Economic Crises

Mrdjan Milićev Mladjan and Dušan Zvonkov Marković
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Mrdjan Milićev Mladjan: EBS Business School, 65183 Wiesbaden, Germany
Dušan Zvonkov Marković: Department for Business Economics and Management, Faculty of Economics, Belgrade University, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-26

Abstract: The rise of Asian and the stagnation of Western middle classes over the last thirty years have resulted in gradual convergence of income of large parts of the world’s population. Recent global crises—the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic—have led to a decline in income and increase in income uncertainty. Rise in consumption of lower quality goods of shorter durability and an overall decline in demand and economic activity resulted as challenges to the global economy. In this paper, we argue that generational responsibility in consumption can be an environmentally sustainable response to crises which enables the economies to overcome the crisis of confidence and reaffirms community ties. As an element of long-term orientation in consumption, generational responsibility is a cultural phenomenon dependent on solidarity within family and the wider community. It is characterized by consideration of consequences of consumption choices on the environment, and the abundance of savings and the usability of goods to be inherited by future generations. For companies, willing to revisit their traditional business models and incorporate principles of sustainability in their competitive strategies, promotion of generational responsibility can become a new source of competitive advantage and a driver of economic recovery.

Keywords: generational responsibility; sustainable consumption; economic crises; long-term orientation; collectivism; corporate social responsibility; competitive strategies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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