Nudging and corporate environmental responsibility: A natural field experiment

Becchetti, Leonardo; Salustri, Francesco; Scaramozzino, Pasquale

Abstract

We devise a “nudging” natural field experiment to test the impact of a simple form of advertising on environmentally responsible products with/without the increase of the responsible product price. We find that the simple use of a small shelf poster explaining the importance of buying a green product (with/without a concurring price increase) generates significant changes in market shares for some of the product classes for both food and non-food products. Part of the effect is generated by the reduced price elasticity of consumers to the poster-plus-price-increase treatment.

Citation

Becchetti, L., Salustri, F., & Scaramozzino, P. (in press). Nudging and corporate environmental responsibility: A natural field experiment. Food Policy, 97, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.101951

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 15, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Aug 13, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jul 17, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 17, 2020
• Journal: Food Policy
• Print ISSN: 0306-9192
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-5657
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 97
• Article Number: 101951
• Pages: 1-17
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.101951
• Keywords: nudging, environmental sustainability, consumer behavior, natural field experiment