Will Green Taxes Undermine Moral Motivation?

Publisert i

Public Finance and Management 10 (2), 2010, pages 331-351

Sammendrag

Both phychologists and economists have shown that under certain circumstances, economic incentives seem to undermine intrinsic or moral motivation. If such crowding‐out effects are sufficiently strong, the effect of green taxes might even be counterproductive and increase, rather than decrease, environmental problems. However, moral motivation can also be reinforced by economic incentives, a fact which has received surprisingly little attention in the literature. I argue that in particular, reciprocal preferences and conditional cooperation provide strong reasons to expect green taxes to support, rather than undermine, individuals’ moral motivation to contribute to a better environment.

Fulltekst

By Karine Nyborg
Published June 22, 2011 2:24 PM - Last modified June 22, 2011 2:30 PM