Too much of a good thing ? Why altruism can harm the environment

Gilles Grolleau (), Lisette Ibanez and Naoufel Mzoughi

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Abstract: Success of eco-labeling schemes, broadly defined, varies among products and across countries. Based on a simple theoretical framework, we show that the nature of environmental attributes among products (i.e., private versus public) and the consumer type (i.e., egoist versus altruist) shape the overall performance of such schemes. In addition, we demonstrate that altruistic consumers exhibiting a too high willingness to pay for the eco-labeled product can inadvertently prevent egoistic consumers from purchasing it, leading to a sub-optimal outcome in terms of environmental performance. Several policy and managerial implications are drawn.

Keywords: altruism; eco-labels; egoism; public goods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01072320v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Published in Ecological Economics, 2009, 68 (7), pp.2145-2149. ⟨10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.02.020⟩

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Journal Article: Too much of a good thing? Why altruism can harm the environment? (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01072320

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.02.020

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