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Motivate the crowd or crowd- them out? The impact of local government spending on the voluntary provision of a green public good

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  • Bartels, Lara
  • Kesternich, Martin

Abstract

Cities are increasingly hold accountable for climate action. By demonstrating their proenvironmentality through own climate-related activities, they not at least aspire to encourage individual climate protection efforts. Based on standard economic theory there is little reason to assume that this is a promising strategy. Financed by taxpayers' money, cities' contributions are considered as substitutes that crowd-out private contributions to the same public good. Inspired by research on providing information on reference group behavior, we challenge this argument and conduct a framed-field experiment to analyze the impact of reference group information on the voluntary provision of a green public good. We investigate whether information on previous contributions by fellow citizens or the city affect individual contributions. We do not find statistical evidence that city-level information crowds-out additional individual contributions. A reference to fellow citizens significantly increases the share of contributors as it attracts subjects that are not per-se pro-environmentally oriented.

Suggested Citation

  • Bartels, Lara & Kesternich, Martin, 2022. "Motivate the crowd or crowd- them out? The impact of local government spending on the voluntary provision of a green public good," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-040, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:22040
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    1. Bartels, Lara & Werthschulte, Madeline, 2023. ""More bang for the buck"? Evidence on the effectiveness of an energy efficiency subsidy," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-022, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voluntary provision of environmental public goods; Social Norms; Crowding-out; Willingness to pay; Framed-field experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • C83 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Survey Methods; Sampling Methods
    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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