Consumption choices and policy preferences under social interdependence

Kurzfassung/Abstract

This dissertation examines how social interdependence and institutional settings shape environmentally relevant consumption choices and support for regulation. Across three experimental studies, it investigates how individuals respond to negative consumption externalities when responsibility can be shifted to others, individual actions are embedded in market interactions, or regulatory decisions affect different groups.

Chapter 1 studies consumption choices involving a trade-off between personal monetary gains and CO2 emissions. It distinguishes between replacement excuses, according to which others would substitute foregone consumption, and waste excuses, according to which abstention may result in wasted resources. Both excuses increase selfish consumption, shift perceived social norms in its favor, and reduce the associated moral costs, with waste excuses generating the largest behavioral effect.

Chapter 2 examines how sharing a market with another consumer affects support for CO2 pricing. Although the resulting possibility of replacement increases aggregate externalities, it reduces support for CO2 pricing only when revenues are allocated to the general state budget. The behavioral effect is consistent with realized replacement rather than with beliefs about being replaced.

Chapter 3 investigates whether support for regulation depends on who is regulated. Individuals are most willing to impose a binding allocation when their own outcome is affected, less willing when the regulation also affects another person, and least willing when it affects only others. Regulation choices are more strongly related to concerns about decision autonomy and misalignment with one’s own future preferences than to concerns about satisfying others’ preferences.

Overall, the findings show that environmentally relevant choices and support for regulation depend not only on material incentives and environmental consequences, but also on how responsibility, social interaction, and decision autonomy are structured and perceived.