Social norms, morals and self-interest as determinants of pro-environment behaviours : the case of household recycling
Abstract
This paper considers the role which selfish, moral and social incentives and pressures play in explaining the extent to which stated choices over pro-environment behaviours vary across individuals. The empirical context is choices over household waste contracts and recycling actions in Poland. A theoretical model is used to show how cost-based motives and the desire for a positive self and social image combine to determine the utility from alternative choices of recycling behaviour. We then describe a discrete choice experiment designed to empirically investigate the effects such drivers have on stated choices. A hybrid logit model is used to link statements over attitudes to recycling to choices, dealing with a potential endogeneity problem caused by the joint effects of un-observables on attitudes and choices. We find that a substantial share of our respondents prefer to sort their waste at home rather than in a central sorting facility. This preference is associated with a moral/intrinsic motivation, involving a belief that sorting at home is more thorough than central sorting.
Citation
Czajkowski , M , Hanley , N & Nyborg , K 2017 , ' Social norms, morals and self-interest as determinants of pro-environment behaviours : the case of household recycling ' , Environmental and Resource Economics , vol. 66 , no. 4 , pp. 647-670 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-015-9964-3
Publication
Environmental and Resource Economics
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0924-6460Type
Journal article
Rights
© The Author(s) 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Description
The first author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Foundation for Polish Science.Collections
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