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    But what does it mean? Competition between products carrying alternative green labels when consumers are active acquirers of information

    Heyes, A. and Kapur, Sandeep and Kennedy, P.W. and Martin, S. and Maxwell, J.W. (2018) But what does it mean? Competition between products carrying alternative green labels when consumers are active acquirers of information. Working Paper. Department of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics, London, UK. (Submitted)

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    Abstract

    Programs that certify the environmental (or other social) attributes of firms are common. But the proliferation of labeling schemes makes it difficult for consumers to know what each one mean – what level of `greenness' does a particular label imply? We provide the first model in which consumers can expend effort to learn what labels mean. The relationship between information acquisition costs, firm pricing decisions, the market shares obtained by alternatively-labeled goods and a brown `backstop' good, and total environmental impact prove complex. Consumer informedness can have perverse implications. In plausible cases a reduction in the cost of information damages environmental outcomes. Our results challenge the presumption that provision of environmental information to the public is necessarily good for welfare or the environment.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Monograph (Working Paper)
    Additional Information: BWPEF 1812
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Eco-labeling, green consumerism, information-based instruments
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Business School
    Research Centres and Institutes: Innovation Management Research, Birkbeck Centre for
    Depositing User: Sandeep Kapur
    Date Deposited: 09 Jan 2019 15:03
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:46
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/25404

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