Anti-Consumerism: Stick or Carrot?

Iwan Bos, Giovanni Maccarrone and Marco Marini
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Giovanni Maccarrone: Department of Social and Economic Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome

No 2024.07, Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei

Abstract: Anti-consumerism is a doctrine that aims to discourage excessive consumption because of its damaging effect on the environment. It can either focus on creating psychic costs for consumers (a ‘stick’) or psychic benefits for non-consumers (a ‘carrot’). This paper examines the impact of these two approaches on competition and welfare. The competitive effect is comparable in both cases – anti-consumerism (weakly) reduces competitive pressure as well as prices, outputs and profits. In terms of consumer and social welfare, however, the carrot performs strictly better than the stick.

Keywords: Anti-Consumerism; Stick and Carrot; Environmental Externalities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 L13 Q50 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-reg
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Working Paper: Anti-Consumerism: Stick or Carrot? (2024)
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