{"title":"The hidden costs of imposing minimum contributions to a global public good","authors":"Diya Abraham , Katarína Glejtková , Ondřej Krčál","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108346","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We study how different types of individuals respond to being forced to make a minimum contribution to a global public good. Participants in our experiment decide how much of their endowment to contribute towards offsetting CO2 emissions. We elicit their contributions when they are free to spend any amount of their endowment on carbon offsets and when they are forced to spend a certain minimum amount on it. We find that those who contribute more than the minimum before it is imposed contribute less overall once the minimum comes into effect. This is true for both a low and a high level of the minimum and appears to be driven in part by pessimistic beliefs about the contributions of others. We show that the lower minimum also reduces <em>overall</em> contributions relative to a situation with no minimum. We do not find evidence that having the level of the minimum determined through a majority vote rather than an exogenous procedure has any material impact on these results.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51021,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Economics","volume":"227 ","pages":"Article 108346"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ecological Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180092400243X","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
We study how different types of individuals respond to being forced to make a minimum contribution to a global public good. Participants in our experiment decide how much of their endowment to contribute towards offsetting CO2 emissions. We elicit their contributions when they are free to spend any amount of their endowment on carbon offsets and when they are forced to spend a certain minimum amount on it. We find that those who contribute more than the minimum before it is imposed contribute less overall once the minimum comes into effect. This is true for both a low and a high level of the minimum and appears to be driven in part by pessimistic beliefs about the contributions of others. We show that the lower minimum also reduces overall contributions relative to a situation with no minimum. We do not find evidence that having the level of the minimum determined through a majority vote rather than an exogenous procedure has any material impact on these results.
期刊介绍：
Ecological Economics is concerned with extending and integrating the understanding of the interfaces and interplay between "nature''s household" (ecosystems) and "humanity''s household" (the economy). Ecological economics is an interdisciplinary field defined by a set of concrete problems or challenges related to governing economic activity in a way that promotes human well-being, sustainability, and justice. The journal thus emphasizes critical work that draws on and integrates elements of ecological science, economics, and the analysis of values, behaviors, cultural practices, institutional structures, and societal dynamics. The journal is transdisciplinary in spirit and methodologically open, drawing on the insights offered by a variety of intellectual traditions, and appealing to a diverse readership.
Specific research areas covered include: valuation of natural resources, sustainable agriculture and development, ecologically integrated technology, integrated ecologic-economic modelling at scales from local to regional to global, implications of thermodynamics for economics and ecology, renewable resource management and conservation, critical assessments of the basic assumptions underlying current economic and ecological paradigms and the implications of alternative assumptions, economic and ecological consequences of genetically engineered organisms, and gene pool inventory and management, alternative principles for valuing natural wealth, integrating natural resources and environmental services into national income and wealth accounts, methods of implementing efficient environmental policies, case studies of economic-ecologic conflict or harmony, etc. New issues in this area are rapidly emerging and will find a ready forum in Ecological Economics.
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