Information Avoidance, Selective Exposure, and Fake(?) News-A Green Market Experiment

Katharina Momsen () and Markus Ohndorf

Working Papers from Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck

Abstract: We investigate if people exploit moral wiggle room in green markets when revelation is stochastic and the revealed information is potentially erroneous. In our laboratory experiment, subjects purchase products associated with co-benefits represented as a contribution to carbon offsets purchased by the experimenters. Information on the size of this contribution is unobservable at first, but can be actively revealed by the consumer. In seven treatments, we alter the information structure as well as the perceived revelation costs. We find strong evidence of self-serving information avoidance in treatments with simple stochastic revelation and reduced reliability of the information, representing potentially 'fake' news. The propensity to avoid information increases with the introduction of nominal information costs, which are in fact not payoff-relevant. We conclude that, generally, self-serving information avoidance can arise in green market situations if specific situational excuses are present, which could explain the demand for products associated with 'greenwashing'.

Keywords: Information avoidance; experiment; carbon o?sets; moral wiggle room; green consumption; fake news (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D91 G11 G41 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-exp and nep-ore
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inn:wpaper:2019-18

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