IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v70y2024i7p4480-4501.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forget-Me-Not: The Persistent Effect of Information Provision for Adopting Climate-Friendly Goods

Author

Listed:
  • Yu Gao

    (Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China)

  • Massimo Tavoni

    (Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, 20156 Milan, Italy; Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), Resources for the Future (RFF)-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment, 20144 Milan, Italy)

Abstract

It is well documented that people have misperceptions about energy costs. However, there is mixed empirical evidence about the effectiveness of information provision and its persistence over time. Understanding the interplay between information regarding the private and social benefits of low-carbon technologies and identifying mechanisms through which information treatments affect people’s long-term behaviors can help reconcile the mixed findings in the literature. In this paper, we measured the long-term effects of information provision through online experiments involving more than 3,000 households in China. We provided people with information on low-carbon light bulbs’ monetary and climate benefits and observed their purchasing decisions over 10 months. We find that information on private or social benefits leads to a temporary effect on most households and a persistent one on the uninformed. This evidence suggests that information provision works through two different mechanisms: increasing saliency and filling the information gap.

Suggested Citation

  • Yu Gao & Massimo Tavoni, 2024. "Forget-Me-Not: The Persistent Effect of Information Provision for Adopting Climate-Friendly Goods," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(7), pages 4480-4501, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:70:y:2024:i:7:p:4480-4501
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2023.4910
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4910
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4910?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
    ---><---

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:70:y:2024:i:7:p:4480-4501. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.