Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/149869 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
WZB Discussion Paper No. SP II 2016-215
Publisher: 
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), Berlin
Abstract: 
Although market-based environmental policy instruments feature prominently in economic theory and are widely employed, they often meet with public resistance. We argue that such resistance may be driven by a feeling of moral responsibility where citizens prefer to tackle environmental problems themselves, rather than delegating the task to others by means of a market mechanism. Using a laboratory experiment that isolates moral responsibility from alternative explanations, we show that moral responsibility induces participants to incur a sizable cost on themselves as well as on other participants. We discuss the implications of this finding for the design and implementation of environmental policies.
Subjects: 
Laboratory Experiment
Moral Responsibility
Environmental Policy
Market Mechanism
Climate Change
JEL: 
C90
H23
Q53
Q54
Q58
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.