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When leadership messaging fails to encourage producers’ climate action: Field experiments reveal what works in the real world

Author

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  • Yokoo, Hide-Fumi
  • Kubo, Takahiro
  • Kunii, Daisuke
  • Sasaki, Hiroki

Abstract

If a government highlighted the first producer to adopt green technology, how would the remaining producers react? This study is the first attempt to evaluate the impact of a message about a climate leader sent by the government to an industry. From among 374 wineries in Japan, half were randomly selected and received a message stating that a certain winery was an early adopter of renewable energy. We then observed whether other wineries participated in webinars on carbon footprint measurement to collect information. We find that this message about climate leadership did not encourage the wineries to participate in the webinar. We interpret this result as reflecting both the strategic decisions of competing wineries and the adverse psychological effects of the message. Further analysis reveals a substantial gap between the stated interest and actual participation, suggesting that self-reported intentions may not reliably predict behavior. Overall, this preregistered field experiment highlights the importance of carefully designing supply-side messaging policies and emphasizes the value of collecting behavioral data in real-world settings to better understand actual responses.

Suggested Citation

  • Yokoo, Hide-Fumi & Kubo, Takahiro & Kunii, Daisuke & Sasaki, Hiroki, 2025. "When leadership messaging fails to encourage producers’ climate action: Field experiments reveal what works in the real world," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:119:y:2025:i:c:s221480432500103x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2025.102439
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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