Intergenerational Spillovers of Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors

Shubhro Bhattacharya, Sara M. Constantino, Nirajana Mishra, Nishith Prakash, Shwetlena Sabarwal, Dighbijoy Samaddar and Raisa Sherif

No 12499, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This study evaluates how environmental education shapes household behavior through the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes. We implement a novel activity-based environmental education program tailored to the local context in Patna, India, designed to engage children, parents, or both. In a randomized field experiment with 1,446 child-parent pairs assigned to child-only, parent-only, joint, or control arms, we separately estimate direct treatment effects and within-household spillovers to non-participating family members. We find substantial within-household spillovers on incentivized behavior: parents whose children were treated are 25 percentage points more likely to choose a delayed recycled certificate over an immediate standard one — comparable to the 25-point effect of treating parents directly — and this certificate-choice spillover runs symmetrically in both directions. Spillovers on beliefs and attitudes, however, are asymmetric: only children shift their parents' views on climate change, with limited spillover running from parents to children on other measures. Joint participation does not outperform targeting children alone once child-to-parent spillovers are accounted for, suggesting that targeting children may be a more scalable and cost-effective approach to promoting sustainable household behavior.

Keywords: environmental education; Intra-household spillovers; Intergenerational transmission; pro-environmental behavior; climate risk perceptions; factorial randomized design; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D10 I20 O10 Q01 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-exp
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