Kapitelvorschau

Kapitelvorschau

Abstract

Sustainable consumption is an urgent issue regarding the rising global environmental pressures. Consequently, sustainable consumption is an important matter for more and more consumers in Germany. But the perception that sustainable consumer goods incur additional costs is a widely mentioned barrier. We have developed a statistical method based on the Laspeyres price index and the product descriptions of the Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) in order to examine the additional costs of organic food products compared to conventional food products. These costs depend on the households’ expenditure structure, so called weighting scheme. Based on Engel´s law, we predict a negative correlation between net equivalent income and the additional costs for organic food products. We verify and quantify this relationship by using income-related weighting schemes. The results show that organic food products are about 80 % more expensive than conventional food products. Furthermore, we find that households cannot afford to purchase solely organic food products without getting into debt when their net equivalent income is below median.

Abstract

Pro-environmental consumption is one element of the behavioral change that is necessary to ensure sustainability. It is well known that consumption patterns differ according to socioeconomic status in general and that pro-environmental consumption behavior is affected by, among others, people's gender, education and current income. However, relatively few studies have tried to link pro-environmental consumption and socioeconomic characteristics beyond these well-known correlations. We aim to contribute to this literature by looking at the effects of the growing employment insecurity on pro-environmental consumption. Therefore we first review the literature on the effects of insecure employment and develop our hypotheses on the effects on purchase of organic food (as an example of pro-environmental consumption). Employing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we show that employment insecurity negatively affects frequency of organic food purchase, as well as perceived freedom of choice and attitudes toward organic food purchase. Our results thus hint at direct and indirect effects of insecurity on pro-environmental consumption behavior. The policy conclusion is that any strategy for sustainable development needs to include social policy in order to enable behavioral change.

Abstract

The consumption analysis in the biographical narratives of young people makes it possible to outline the strategies enacted to deal with the 'late modernity' crisis scenario. Young people have incorporated the dimension of crisis - as incertitude and generalized risk - and they seem to perform reflexive consumption strategies closely linked, in some cases, to the sustainability issue, which emerges as a drive of the current consumption practices. However, consumption strategies differ for the individual endowment of social resources as well as biographical trajectories. This paper deals with this issue and the results of a qualitative research are reported.

Abstract

This paper analyzes differences across three academic programs (business, cultural studies, and environmental studies) in terms of students’ energy consumption. The study provides an analysis of how students’ awareness concerning sustainable energy behaviors (energy awareness) and the antecedents of this awareness influence whether students purchase energy from renewable resources or not. Drawing on insights from career studies and environmental psychology, the role of academic disciplines in predicting attitudes and behaviors is discussed and psychological antecedents of energy awareness are identified. The study finds evidence for significant disciplinary differences concerning students’ levels of energy awareness, the influence of this awareness on renewable energy consumption, and the share of students purchasing renewable energy in the three disciplines. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Abstract

Infant industries have come to be associated with behind the frontier technologies in developing countries. This paper takes a fresh look at the infant industry problem and in the more contemporary perspective of developed-emerging economy competition in lead markets such as for example the global solar panel industry. Different policy scenarios are considered under two different trading regimes. First one where all firms learn symmetrically in cost. Then one where learning paths and preference about sustainable consumption partly could be conforming with prevailing institutions in each country. The paper demonstrates that NTBs or standards can be welfare improving in ways that ordinary instruments such as tariffs and subsidies cannot.