IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/resene/v36y2014i2p487-507.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Overcoming the barriers to the market performance of green consumer goods

Author

Listed:
  • Kaufman, Noah

Abstract

Environmentally-friendly (“green”) products face a unique set of market barriers. I develop a dynamic model of observational learning and costly search wherein a green consumer product enters a market to challenge an established “dirty” product. Purchase decisions depend on price and quality differences, consumers’ willingness-to-pay to protect the environment, and the cost of obtaining information. Using both theoretical analyses and simulations, I solve for the long-term market performance of the green product. Conditions are provided for when it is socially optimal to encourage green purchases with public policy. Comparative statics predict the effectiveness of various policy tools used to improve market performance. Permanent financial incentives are shown to be more effective than informational campaigns at encouraging green purchases if the green product is inferior to the dirty substitute. Temporary financial incentives are shown to be an ineffective tool to encourage the long-term market success of any green product. Numerical market simulations are used to test and supplement the theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaufman, Noah, 2014. "Overcoming the barriers to the market performance of green consumer goods," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 487-507.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:resene:v:36:y:2014:i:2:p:487-507
    DOI: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2013.05.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0928765513000468
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2013.05.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nyborg, Karine & Howarth, Richard B. & Brekke, Kjell Arne, 2006. "Green consumers and public policy: On socially contingent moral motivation," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 351-366, November.
    2. Aurora García‐Gallego & Nikolaos Georgantzís, 2009. "Market Effects of Changes in Consumers' Social Responsibility," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 235-262, March.
    3. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    4. Anderson, Lisa R & Holt, Charles A, 1997. "Information Cascades in the Laboratory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 847-862, December.
    5. Lones Smith & Peter Sorensen, 2000. "Pathological Outcomes of Observational Learning," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 371-398, March.
    6. Geroski, P. A., 2000. "Models of technology diffusion," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4-5), pages 603-625, April.
    7. Arora, Seema & Gangopadhyay, Shubhashis, 1995. "Toward a theoretical model of voluntary overcompliance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 289-309, December.
    8. Munshi, Kaivan, 2004. "Social learning in a heterogeneous population: technology diffusion in the Indian Green Revolution," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 185-213, February.
    9. Loureiro, Maria L. & Lotade, Justus, 2005. "Do fair trade and eco-labels in coffee wake up the consumer conscience?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 129-138, April.
    10. Hongbin Cai & Yuyu Chen & Hanming Fang, 2009. "Observational Learning: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 864-882, June.
    11. Kenneth Hendricks & Alan Sorensen & Thomas Wiseman, 2012. "Observational Learning and Demand for Search Goods," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 1-31, February.
    12. Jacob Goeree & Thomas Palfrey & Brian Rogers, 2006. "Social learning with private and common values," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 28(2), pages 245-264, June.
    13. Eva Camacho-Cuena & Aurora García-Gallego & Nikolaos Georgantzís & Gerardo Sabater-Grande, 2004. "An Experimental Validation of Hypothetical WTP for a Recyclable Product," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 27(3), pages 313-335, March.
    14. H. Peyton Young, 2009. "Innovation Diffusion in Heterogeneous Populations: Contagion, Social Influence, and Social Learning," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1899-1924, December.
    15. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    16. Brécard, Dorothée & Hlaimi, Boubaker & Lucas, Sterenn & Perraudeau, Yves & Salladarré, Frédéric, 2009. "Determinants of demand for green products: An application to eco-label demand for fish in Europe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 115-125, November.
    17. Buenstorf, Guido & Cordes, Christian, 2008. "Can sustainable consumption be learned? A model of cultural evolution," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 646-657, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ionela Corina Chersan & Valentin Florentin Dumitru & Cãtãlina Gorgan & Vasile Gorgan, 2020. "Green Public Procurement in the Academic Literature," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 22(53), pages 1-82, February.
    2. Cheung, Millissa F.Y. & To, W.M., 2019. "An extended model of value-attitude-behavior to explain Chinese consumers’ green purchase behavior," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 145-153.
    3. Hamid Hamoudi & Carmen Avilés-Palacios, 2023. "Product Sustainability and Consumer Environmental Awareness in Differentiated Markets," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 29(4), pages 277-291, November.
    4. Liobikienė, Genovaitė & Mandravickaitė, Justina & Bernatonienė, Jurga, 2016. "Theory of planned behavior approach to understand the green purchasing behavior in the EU: A cross-cultural study," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 38-46.
    5. Burani, Nadia & Mantovani, Andrea, 2024. "Environmental policies with green network effect and price discrimination," TSE Working Papers 24-1513, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Jul 2024.
    6. Changxin Xu & Lihua Yang & Bin Zhang & Min Song, 2021. "Bargaining power and information asymmetry in China’s water market: an empirical two-tier stochastic frontier analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(5), pages 2395-2418, November.
    7. Hamid Hamoudi & Carmen Avilés-Palacios, 2022. "Awareness Campaigns in a Horizontally Differentiated Market with Environmentally Conscious Consumers, Private Versus Public Duopoly," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-21, October.
    8. Burani, Nadia & Mantovani, Andrea, 2020. "Non-linear pricing and conscious consumption," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mira Frick & Yuhta Ishii, 2015. "Innovation Adoption by Forward-Looking Social Learners," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1877, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    2. Fishman, Arthur & Fishman, Ram & Gneezy, Uri, 2019. "A tale of two food stands: Observational learning in the field," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 101-108.
    3. Stephanie De Mel & Kaivan Munshi & Soenje Reiche & Hamid Sabourian, 2021. "Herding with Heterogeneous Ability: An Application to Organ Transplantation," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2308, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    4. Anna K. Edenbrandt & Christian Gamborg & Bo Jellesmark Thorsen, 2020. "Observational learning in food choices: The effect of product familiarity and closeness of peers," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(3), pages 482-498, June.
    5. Liangfei Qiu & Arunima Chhikara & Asoo Vakharia, 2021. "Multidimensional Observational Learning in Social Networks: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(3), pages 876-894, September.
    6. March, Christoph & Ziegelmeyer, Anthony, 2020. "Altruistic observational learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    7. James C. D. Fisher & John Wooders, 2017. "Interacting information cascades: on the movement of conventions between groups," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(1), pages 211-231, January.
    8. Melissa Newham & Rune Midjord, 2018. "Herd Behavior in FDA Committees: A Structural Approach," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1744, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    9. Jacob K. Goeree & Thomas R. Palfrey & Brian W. Rogers & Richard D. McKelvey, 2007. "Self-Correcting Information Cascades," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 733-762.
    10. Lamberson PJ, 2010. "Social Learning in Social Networks," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-33, August.
    11. Melissa Newham & Rune Midjord, 2019. "Do Expert Panelists Herd? Evidence from FDA Committees," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1825, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. H. Peyton Young, 2009. "Innovation Diffusion in Heterogeneous Populations: Contagion, Social Influence, and Social Learning," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1899-1924, December.
    13. Wu, Jiemai, 2015. "Helpful laymen in informational cascades," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 407-415.
    14. Bobkova, Nina & Mass, Helene, 2022. "Two-dimensional information acquisition in social learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    15. Syngjoo Choi & Douglas Gale & Shachar Kariv, 2012. "Social learning in networks: a Quantal Response Equilibrium analysis of experimental data," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 16(2), pages 135-157, September.
    16. Jin Huang, 2017. "To Glance or to Peruse: Observational and Active Learning from Peer Consumers," Working Papers wp2018_1716, CEMFI.
    17. Guo, Xiaoli & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2022. "When is intergroup herding beneficial?," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 66-77.
    18. Jin Huang, 2017. "To Glance or to Peruse: Observational and Active Learning from Peer Consumers," Working Papers wp2017_1716, CEMFI.
    19. Jonas Hedlund & Carlos Oyarzun, 2018. "Imitation in heterogeneous populations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 937-973, June.
    20. Davide Crapis & Bar Ifrach & Costis Maglaras & Marco Scarsini, 2017. "Monopoly Pricing in the Presence of Social Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3586-3608, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Green consumer products; Observational learning; Environmental policy; Financial incentives; Informational campaigns;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q2 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:resene:v:36:y:2014:i:2:p:487-507. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505569 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.