Inflation concerns and green product consumption: Evidence from a nationwide survey and a framed field experiment

Promoting green (usually more costly) product consumption is one essential element in building a sustainable society. In times of high inflation, not only budget constraints but also the fear that prices will continue to rise might limit the effectiveness of exerted efforts to promote sustainable behaviors. To test this suggestion, we conducted a Germany-wide survey with almost 1200 respondents, followed by a framed field experiment to confirm causality. Our proxy for green consumption is organic food purchases. Survey respondents’ stated organic purchasing behavior is positively correlated with concerns about climate change but negatively correlated with concerns about inflation. The latter result is driven by individuals with a below-median environmental attitude. In the framed field experiment, we use the priming method to manipulate the saliency of inflation concerns. Whereas sizably relaxing the budget constraint has no impact on the share of organic products in participants’ baskets, the priming significantly decreases the share of organic products for individuals with below-median environmental attitude. Using the same inflation priming in a subsequent survey experiment with around 1800 respondents, we find that high inflationary environments affect both the perception of organic being luxury products and the social norm of buying organic. Both effects are more pronounced for individuals with below-median environmental attitude and, hence, they are the likely mechanisms driving the negative effects on organic product consumption.