This project examines to what extent people's potentially distorted beliefs about their own carbon footprint explain their consumption behavior, and whether correcting these beliefs changes behavior.
Combining a large-scale survey, a controlled lab experiment, and a field experiment, the project provides causal evidence on how motivated beliefs about carbon emissions interact with consumer preferences and policy tools such as carbon pricing.
Despite widespread concern about climate change, there is a considerable gap between consumers' stated willingness to change their consumption habits and their actual behavior. We study whether this gap is explained by self-serving, motivated beliefs about the true carbon footprint of one's own consumption, building on the theoretical framework of motivated beliefs.
In a first study, we survey a large, representative sample of the German population to document correlations between people's beliefs about their carbon footprint and their consumption patterns, and exogenously manipulate respondents' beliefs to measure the causal effect on their willingness to invest in carbon capture.
In a second study, a controlled lab experiment tests how prices causally affect the distortion of beliefs about the carbon footprint of consumption, and the downstream consequences for consumption behavior.
In a third study, a field experiment in university canteens tests how reminders of the moral cost of carbon-intense consumption affect demand for CO2-heavy menu options in a natural setting.
The results will help policymakers understand how misperceptions of one's own carbon impact interact with individual preferences and life circumstances, and how this affects the effectiveness of policy tools such as a CO2 tax.
