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Nudging Households’ Sustainable Investments: Results from a Pilot Lab-in-the-field Experiment In Italy

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Abstract

This paper addresses two main research questions in sustainable finance: what is the household willingness to pay for sustainable investments? Can households be stimulated in this connection by means of visual nudges? To this end we ran a pilot lab-in-the-field experiment in October-November 2024 in different branches of a large Italian bank. Three are the main results. First, the willingness to pay is lower for graduated individuals, but higher for those with an investment horizon between 1 and 5 years, and among those engaged in volunteering and concerned about climate change. Second, the exposure to a negative visual treatment, by contrast to a positive one, causes an average increase in the willingness to pay for Environmental, Social, and Governance assets, albeit this effect vanishes once the model is augmented with control variables. Third, when dissecting results by the factor of interest, the negative visual treatment significantly increases the willingness to pay among the investors interested in the Environmental dimension only. This suggests that, with a suitable leverage, the demand and willingness to pay for all sustainability dimensions can be nudged, with important industry and policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Beatrice Bertelli & Marianna Brunetti & Costanza Torricelli & Mariangela Zoli, 2025. "Nudging Households’ Sustainable Investments: Results from a Pilot Lab-in-the-field Experiment In Italy," CEIS Research Paper 600, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 30 May 2025.
    • Handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:600
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sustainable finance; household financial choices; willingness to pay; visual nudges; lab-in-the field experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • M30 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - General

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