A behavioral rebound effect |
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| Institution: | 1. School of Accounting, Finance and Economics, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand;2. Ministry for the Environment, Wellington, New Zealand;3. Department of Economics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia;4. Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, Melbourne, Australia;1. The World Bank, United States;2. Georgetown University, United States;1. Department of Resource Economics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA;2. Department of Economics, University of Alaska-Anchorage, USA;3. Institute for State Economy, Nankai University, China;4. School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University-Bloomington, USA;1. School of Environmental and Rural Studies, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia;2. Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, United States;3. School of Economics and Center for the Study of Security and Drugs (CESED), Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia;1. Land Environment Economics & Policy Institute, Department of Economics, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4PU, UK;2. Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK;3. University of Siena, Department of Political Science and International, Italy;4. Department of Economics and Management, University of Trento, Via Vigilio Inama, 5, 38122, Trento, Italy;1. Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom;2. The Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research, Norway;3. The Department of Economics, University of Oslo, Postboks 1095 Blindern, 0317, Oslo, Norway;4. Environmental Economics and Natural Resources Group, Sub-Department of Economics, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 8130, 6700 EW, Wageningen, the Netherlands;5. Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway |
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| Abstract: | Pro-environmental behaviors are an important avenue for mitigating environmental impacts. Technological improvements are also a vital tool for reducing environmental damage from consumption. However, their benefits are partially offset by the direct rebound effect, whereby a consumer rationally responds to an increase in resource use efficiency by consuming more. This paper investigates whether technological improvement might also reduce behaviorally motivated mitigation of environmental damage. A behavioral rebound effect operates through two channels. First, pro-environmental effort is reduced after a decrease in marginal environmental damage. Second, moral licensing reduces pro-environmental effort further when technological change is endogenous. I develop a novel real effort laboratory experiment to identify these behaviors. I find a positive behavioral rebound effect. I also find evidence consistent with moral licensing, which is strongest among subjects with a higher degree of pro-environmental attitudes and beliefs. Subjects’ baseline level of pro-environmental effort is driven by beliefs about social norms. |
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| Keywords: | Charity Environmental externality Laboratory experiment Mitigation Moral licensing Offsetting Pro-environmental behaviors Public goods Rebound effect Social norms D62 D64 Q40 Q55 |
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