Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/207069 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers in Economics and Statistics No. 2019-03
Publisher: 
University of Innsbruck, Research Platform Empirical and Experimental Economics (eeecon), Innsbruck
Abstract: 
We investigate if decision makers exploit moral wiggle room in green market settings. We therefore implement a laboratory experiment in which subjects purchase products associated with externalities. In six between-subjects treatments, we alter the availability of information on the externalities, the price of revealing information as well as the nature of the externality, which could either affect another subject or change the amount spent by the experimenters on carbon offsets. We find that subjects do not exploit moral wiggle room when revealing information is costless. When a very small cost of revealing information is introduced, their behavior depends on the relation between prices and externalities. In situations in which it is relatively cheap to have a large impact on the recipient's payoff, subjects exploit moral wiggle room in order to choose selfishly. For other parametrizations, subjects behave either honestly egoistically or altruistically.
Subjects: 
Information avoidance
experiment
carbon offsets
moral wiggle room
ethical consumption
JEL: 
C91
D12
D64
D89
Q50
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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