IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

The social economics of ethical consumption: Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence

Author Info

  • Martha A. Starr

Abstract

Recent years have seen rising discussion of ethical consumption as a means of stemming global warming, challenging unsavory business practices, and promoting other pro-social goals. This paper first lays out a conceptual framework for understanding the spread of ethical consumption, in which heterogeneous preferences and sensitivity to social norms feature centrally. It then presents empirical evidence from a well-known nationally representative survey on factors associated with tendencies to buy ethically. It is found that, ceteris paribus, people are more likely to buy ethically when others around them do too, consistent with a role of social norms in promoting ethical-consumption behaviors.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://w.american.edu/cas/economics/repec/amu/workingpapers/2009-07.pdf
File Function: First version, 2009
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by American University, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number 2009-07.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: Jun 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:amu:wpaper:2009-07
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.american.edu/cas/economics/

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
  • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
  • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
  • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
  • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as in new window
  1. Jonathan Gershuny & John Robinson, 1988. "Historical changes in the household division of labor," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(4), pages 537-552, November.
  2. James Andreoni, 1994. "Warm-Glow versus Cold-Prickle: The Effects of Positive and Negative Framing on Cooperation in Experiments," Experimental 9410002, EconWPA.
  3. repec:feb:natura:0061 is not listed on IDEAS
  4. Eriksson, Clas, 2004. "Can green consumerism replace environmental regulation?--a differentiated-products example," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 281-293, September.
  5. Diamantopoulos, Adamantios & Schlegelmilch, Bodo B. & Sinkovics, Rudolf R. & Bohlen, Greg M., 2003. "Can socio-demographics still play a role in profiling green consumers? A review of the evidence and an empirical investigation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 465-480, June.
  6. Catherine C. Eckel, 2007. "People Playing Games: The Human Face of Experimental Economics," Southern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 840–857, April.
  7. James Andreoni & Lise Vesterlund, 2001. "Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(1), pages 293-312.
  8. James Andreoni & Eleanor Brown & Isaac Rischall, 2003. "Charitable Giving by Married Couples Who Decides and Why Does it Matter?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(1).
  9. Loureiro, Maria L. & Lotade, Justus, 2005. "Do fair trade and eco-labels in coffee wake up the consumer conscience?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 129-138, April.
  10. Gary D. Thompson & Julia Kidwell, 1998. "Explaining the Choice of Organic Produce: Cosmetic Defects, Prices, and Consumer Preferences," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 80(2), pages 277-287.
  11. Eckel, Catherine C & Grossman, Philip J, 1998. "Are Women Less Selfish Than Men? Evidence from Dictator Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 726-35, May.
  12. 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.
  13. Lisa George & Joel Waldfogel, 2003. "Who Affects Whom in Daily Newspaper Markets?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(4), pages 765-784, August.
  14. Loureiro, Maria L. & McCluskey, Jill J. & Mittelhammer, Ronald C., 2001. "Assessing Consumer Preferences For Organic, Eco-Labeled, And Regular Apples," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 26(02), December.
  15. Waldfogel, Joel, 2003. " Preference Externalities: An Empirical Study of Who Benefits Whom in Differentiated-Product Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(3), pages 557-68, Autumn.
  16. Stevens-Garmon, John & Huang, Chung L. & Lin, Biing-Hwan, 2007. "Organic Demand: A Profile of Consumers in the Fresh Produce Market," Choices, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 22(2).
  17. Glaeser, Edward L & Glendon, Spencer, 1998. "Who Owns Guns? Criminals, Victims, and the Culture of Violence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 458-62, May.
  18. Thomas Bue Bjorner & Lars Garn Hansen & Clifford S. Russell, 2002. "Environmental Labelling and Consumer's Choice - An Empirical Analysis of the Effect of the Nordic Swan," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0203, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
  19. Rooney, Patrick M. & Mesch, Debra J. & Chin, William & Steinberg, Kathryn S., 2005. "The effects of race, gender, and survey methodologies on giving in the US," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 173-180, February.
  20. Nomura, Noboru & Akai, Makoto, 2004. "Willingness to pay for green electricity in Japan as estimated through contingent valuation method," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 78(4), pages 453-463, August.
  21. Chris Arnot & Peter Boxall & Sean Cash, 2006. "Do ethical consumers care about price? A revealed preference analysis of fair trade coffee purchases," Natural Field Experiments 00221, The Field Experiments Website.
  22. Sen, Sankar & Gurhan-Canli, Zeynep & Morwitz, Vicki, 2001. " Withholding Consumption: A Social Dilemma Perspective on Consumer Boycotts," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(3), pages 399-417, December.
  23. Pat Auger & Timothy Devinney, 2007. "Do What Consumers Say Matter? The Misalignment of Preferences with Unconstrained Ethical Intentions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 76(4), pages 361-383, December.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as in new window


Cited by:

  1. Larissa Schütte & Diana Gregory-Smith, 2015. "Neutralisation and Mental Accounting in Ethical Consumption: The Case of Sustainable Holidays," Sustainability, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 7(6), pages 7959, June.
  2. Christopher Jeffords, 2014. "Preference-directed regulation when ethical environmental policy choices are formed with limited information," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 573-606, March.
  3. Martha A. Starr, 2015. "The Economics of Ethical Consumption," Working Papers 2015-01, American University, Department of Economics.
  4. Degli Antoni, Giacomo & Sacconi, Lorenzo, 2013. "Social responsibility, activism and boycotting in a firm–stakeholders network of games with players’ conformist preferences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 216-226.
  5. Leßmann, Ortrud & Masson, Torsten, 2015. "Sustainable consumption in capability perspective: Operationalization and empirical illustration," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 64-72.
  6. Mari Niva & Johanna Mäkelä & Nina Kahma & Unni Kjærnes, 2014. "Eating Sustainably? Practices and Background Factors of Ecological Food Consumption in Four Nordic Countries," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 37(4), pages 465-484, December.
  7. Leonard, Tammy & McKillop, Caitlin & Carson, Jo Ann & Shuval, Kerem, 2014. "Neighborhood effects on food consumption," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 99-113.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:amu:wpaper:2009-07. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Thomas Meal)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.