Research
Research
We explore the interplay between two key drivers of individual green consumption: environmental preferences and social image concerns, when both conspicuous goods and green goods contribute to social image. We consider four stylized lifestyles crossing two characteristics (Green/Brown) x (Conspicuous/Ordinary), all differing in environmental impacts and status benefits. Our model generates two key predictions. First, green conspicuous goods mostly influence consumption choices from individuals with intermediate environmental concern and strong image motives, allowing them to adopt greener lifestyles while maintaining social image. Such goods can thus smooth the environmental effects of lifestyle changes. Second, the environmental impact of consumption can be non-monotonic in preferences, as it depends on relative impact-intensities, i.e., on pollution per dollar rather than per unit, giving rise to possible volume effects and behavioral rebound. When green conspicuous consumption has relatively low impact intensity, increasing environmental concern may paradoxically raise pollution. These results show that image-driven green consumption does not automatically reduce environmental damage. Environmental policy, such as targeted nudges or differential taxes on conspicuous goods,must account for the joint distribution of environmental and image preferences. The findings highlight both the potential and the limits of conspicuous green goods in reconciling Eco and Ego in consumer behavior.
Click here to read the working paper.
Presentations of this work: FAERE Doctoral Workshop (March 2024), Internal PhD Seminar (June 2024), FAERE Annual Conference (September 2024), 30th EAERE Conference in Bergen (June 2025), 24th Journées LAGV in Marseille (July 2025). Upcoming presentations: 14th Mannheim Conference on Energy and the Environment (May 2026), World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists (WCERE) in Lisbon (June 2026)
We investigate how social image concerns and pro-environmental motivation shape vegetarian food choices among university students. Using a lab-in-the-field experiment in a student canteen (N = 238 after the first wave, second wave planned in May), participants chose between vegetarian and meat-based pasta dishes. In treated groups, an organic vegetarian option was made publicly salient through a distinctive green tray, increasing its social visibility. To capture heterogeneity in responses, we combine incentivized food choices with pre-experimental measures of individual preferences and beliefs. These include environmental concern, baseline diet, and incentivized perceived social norms. We hypothesize that greater visibility should increase the share of vegetarian choices and raise demand for the more expensive organic option. Preliminary econometric results do not support these hypotheses, as we find no evidence of a significant treatment effect on the binary dish choice. Yet, they indicate that vegetarian choices are primarily driven by baseline intrinsic environmental motivation and self-reported habitual meat consumption. Treatment effects seem to be heterogeneous, significantly concentrated among individuals with stronger baseline tendencies toward image-related behavior. These first findings shed light on the weight of dietary and behavioral habits as well as baseline intrinsic preferences, both potentially thwarting or at least limiting the intended effects of social image nudges, with practical implications for the design of sustainable food interventions targeting young adults and student populations.
Presentations of this work: Paris Junior Experimentalists Meetings (November 2024), Environmental Economics Seminar, University of Gothenburg (May 2025), CREST-PSAE Workshop (April 2026)
Upcoming presentations: PSAE Internal Seminar, Journées LAGV in Aix-en-Provence, 16th Annual Conference of the French Association of Experimental Economics (ASFEE) in Lille (June 2026)
Why do some individuals adopt certain pro-environmental actions without following through on more demanding behaviors, while others display sustained moral consistency and some remain inactive? This paper develops a simple self-signaling model to study these patterns through motivated belief updating. Individuals differ in intrinsic prosocial motivation and sequentially choose between two discrete pro-environmental actions. In addition to discounted material benefits, agents derive self-image utility from perceiving themselves as morally motivated. Because individuals may “forget” their type between periods, they must infer their own motivation from their past behavior, capturing imperfect self-awareness and the potential for self-deception. The first action therefore serves as a signal to the future self, shaping beliefs and subsequent choices. Using Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium with a refinement based on the D1 criterion, we characterize separating and pooling equilibria that generate different behavioral patterns. Depending on costs and self-image incentives, the model predicts moral consistency (positive spillovers), moral licensing (negative spillovers), or inaction. The framework highlights how intrapersonal signaling and motivated inference alone can produce heterogeneous behavioral responses to environmental incentives and policies.