IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lue/wpaper/209.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Personal norms of sustainability and their impact on management – The case of rangeland management in semi-arid regions

Author

Listed:
  • Roland Olbrich

    (Department of Sustainability Sciences and Department of Economics, Leuphana University of Lueneburg, Germany)

  • Martin F. Quaas

    (Department of Economics, University of Kiel, Germany)

  • Stefan Baumgaertner

    (Department of Sustainability Sciences and Department of Economics, Leuphana University of Lueneburg, Germany)

Abstract

We empirically study personal norms of sustainability, conceptualized according to the normactivation theory and operationalized under the notion of strong ecological-economic sustainability, for commercial cattle farmers in semi-arid rangelands of Namibia, a system that is subject to extensive degradation. We characterize farmers’ personal norms, study their determinants, and analyze their impact on actual management based on the dual-preferences model. We find personal norms of sustainability that are heterogeneous across farmers, but vary little with socio-demographic or environmental characteristics. We find no evidence for a significant impact of personal norms on actual management behavior, which may be due to farmers not feeling capable for averting adverse long-term consequences of their management. This may contribute to the observed degradation of rangelands in Namibia.

Suggested Citation

  • Roland Olbrich & Martin F. Quaas & Stefan Baumgaertner, 2011. "Personal norms of sustainability and their impact on management – The case of rangeland management in semi-arid regions," Working Paper Series in Economics 209, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:lue:wpaper:209
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Forschungseinrichtungen/ifvwl/WorkingPapers/lue/pdf/wp_209_Upload.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kjell Arne Brekke & Gorm Kipperberg & Karine Nyborg, 2010. "Social Interaction in Responsibility Ascription: The Case of Household Recycling," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(4), pages 766-784.
    2. Roland Olbrich & Martin F. Quaas & Stefan Baumgärtner, 2009. "Sustainable use of ecosystem services under multiple risks – a survey of commercial cattle farmers in semi-arid rangelands in Namibia," Working Paper Series in Economics 137, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    3. Ek, Kristina & Söderholm, Patrik, 2008. "Norms and economic motivation in the Swedish green electricity market," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1-2), pages 169-182, December.
    4. Baumgärtner, Stefan & Quaas, Martin F., 2009. "Ecological-economic viability as a criterion of strong sustainability under uncertainty," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 2008-2020, May.
    5. Hausman,Daniel M. & McPherson,Michael S., 2006. "Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521608664, December.
    6. Howarth, Richard B., 2007. "Towards an operational sustainability criterion," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 656-663, September.
    7. Brekke, Kjell Arne & Kverndokk, Snorre & Nyborg, Karine, 2003. "An economic model of moral motivation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 1967-1983, September.
    8. Conlin, Michael & Lynn, Michael & O'Donoghue, Ted, 2003. "The norm of restaurant tipping," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 297-321, November.
    9. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    10. Quaas, Martin F. & Baumgartner, Stefan & Becker, Christian & Frank, Karin & Muller, Birgit, 2007. "Uncertainty and sustainability in the management of rangelands," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 251-266, April.
    11. Roland Olbrich & Martin F. Quaas & Stefan Baumgaertner, 2012. "Characterizing commercial cattle farms in Namibia: risk, management and sustainability," Working Paper Series in Economics 248, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    12. Andrew Postlewaite, 2010. "Social Norms and Preferences, Chapter for the Handbook for Social Economics, Edited by J. Benhabib, A. Bisin and M. Jackson," PIER Working Paper Archive 10-031, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    13. Pezzey, John C V & Withagen, Cees A, 1998. " The Rise, Fall and Sustainability of Capital-Resource Economies," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(2), pages 513-527, June.
    14. H. Peyton Young, 2007. "Social Norms," Economics Series Working Papers 307, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    15. Andrew Postlewaite, 2010. "Social Norms and Preferences," PIER Working Paper Archive 10-019, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    16. Elster, Jon, 1989. "Social Norms and Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 99-117, Fall.
    17. Martin F. Quaas & Stefan Baumgärtner, 2011. "Optimal grazing management rules in semi-arid rangelands with uncertain rainfall," Working Paper Series in Economics 193, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    18. Hausman,Daniel M. & McPherson,Michael S., 2006. "Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521846295.
    19. Pearce, David W. & Atkinson, Giles D., 1993. "Capital theory and the measurement of sustainable development: an indicator of "weak" sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 103-108, October.
    20. Ekins, Paul & Simon, Sandrine & Deutsch, Lisa & Folke, Carl & De Groot, Rudolf, 2003. "A framework for the practical application of the concepts of critical natural capital and strong sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2-3), pages 165-185, March.
    21. Thogersen, John, 1999. "Spillover processes in the development of a sustainable consumption pattern," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 53-81, February.
    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. Roland Olbrich & Martin F. Quaas & Stefan Baumgaertner, 2012. "Characterizing commercial cattle farms in Namibia: risk, management and sustainability," Working Paper Series in Economics 248, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.

    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. Roland Olbrich & Martin F. Quaas & Stefan Baumgärtner, 2014. "Personal Norms of Sustainability and Farm Management Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(8), pages 1-28, August.
    2. Baumgärtner, Stefan & Quaas, Martin F., 2009. "Ecological-economic viability as a criterion of strong sustainability under uncertainty," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 2008-2020, May.
    3. Müller, Birgit & Quaas, Martin F. & Frank, Karin & Baumgärtner, Stefan, 2011. "Pitfalls and potential of institutional change: Rain-index insurance and the sustainability of rangeland management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 2137-2144, September.
    4. Dietz, Simon & Neumayer, Eric, 2007. "Weak and strong sustainability in the SEEA: Concepts and measurement," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(4), pages 617-626, March.
    5. Briguglio, Marie & Delaney, Liam & Wood, Alex, 2018. "Partisanship, priming and participation in public-good schemes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 136-150.
    6. Hallsworth, Michael & List, John A. & Metcalfe, Robert D. & Vlaev, Ivo, 2017. "The behavioralist as tax collector: Using natural field experiments to enhance tax compliance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 14-31.
    7. Litvine, Dorian & Wüstenhagen, Rolf, 2011. "Helping "light green" consumers walk the talk: Results of a behavioural intervention survey in the Swiss electricity market," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 462-474, January.
    8. Ahi, Payman & Searcy, Cory & Jaber, Mohamad Y., 2018. "A Quantitative Approach for Assessing Sustainability Performance of Corporations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 336-346.
    9. Martinet, Vincent, 2011. "A characterization of sustainability with indicators," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 183-197, March.
    10. Kallbekken, Steffen & Westskog, Hege & Mideksa, Torben K., 2010. "Appeals to social norms as policy instruments to address consumption externalities," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 447-454, August.
    11. Stephan Müller & Georg von Wangenheim, 2014. "The impact of market innovations on the evolution of norms: the sustainability case," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201432, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    12. Roland Olbrich & Martin F. Quaas & Stefan Baumgaertner, 2012. "Characterizing commercial cattle farms in Namibia: risk, management and sustainability," Working Paper Series in Economics 248, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    13. Ankinée Kirakozian, 2016. "One Without The Other? Behavioural And Incentive Policies For Household Waste Management," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 526-551, July.
    14. Jessica Ingenillem & Joachim Merz & Stefan Baumgärtner, 2014. "Determinants and interactions of sustainability and risk management of commercial cattle farmers in Namibia," Working Paper Series in Economics 304, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    15. Abbott, Andrew & Nandeibam, Shasikanta & O'Shea, Lucy, 2013. "Recycling: Social norms and warm-glow revisited," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 10-18.
    16. Cecere, Grazia & Mancinelli, Susanna & Mazzanti, Massimiliano, 2014. "Waste prevention and social preferences: the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 163-176.
    17. Phu Nguyen-Van & Anne Stenger & Tuyen Tiet, 2021. "Social incentive factors in interventions promoting sustainable behaviors: A meta-analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-27, December.
    18. Jonathan B. Wight, 2011. "Ethics and Critical Thinking," Chapters, in: Gail M. Hoyt & KimMarie McGoldrick (ed.), International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics, chapter 18, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Ofer Azar, 2009. "Incentives and service quality in the restaurant industry: the tipping-service puzzle," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(15), pages 1917-1927.
    20. Yu, Yun & Lei, Yalin, 2017. "China's provincial exhaustible resources rent and produced capital stock—Based on Hartwick's rule," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 114-121.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    commercial cattle farming; Namibia; norm-activation theory; personal norms; dual-preferences model; semi-arid rangelands; sustainability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:lue:wpaper:209. 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: Joachim Wagner (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://leuphana.de/institute/ivwl.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.