Journal of Public Economics · 2026 · Jayant V. Ganguli、Friederike Mengel
中文摘要
我们考察社会影响能否提高人们减少其碳影响的意愿。在一项包含两轮数据收集的大规模在线实验中，参与者可以选择将10英镑禀赋中的任意比例用于减排。若第一轮参与者被告知，其（匿名化的）选择将在第二轮参与者做出选择之前被后者观察到，那么第一轮参与者的减排意愿（WTM）会提高约17%。若其选择是在第二轮参与者已经做出选择之后才被观察到，则不会出现这一效应，这表明真正起作用的是施加影响的可能性，而不仅仅是被观察本身。在广延边际上增加影响，即增加观察该选择的第二轮参与者人数，并不会提高减排意愿。我们还引出了参与者的信念，发现大多数参与者高估了自己所具有的影响力。
• 拥有社会影响力会提高人们减少其碳影响的意愿。
• 然而，这种效应难以规模化。
• 人们往往高估自己所具有的影响力。
Abstract
We investigate the potential of social influence to increase people’s willingness to mitigate their carbon impact. In a large-scale online experiment consisting of two waves of data collection participants are given the choice to spend any share of a 10 GBP endowment on mitigation. If a wave-1 participant is told that their (anonymized) choice will be observed by a wave-2 participant before that participant makes their choice, then the wave-1 participant’s willingness to mitigate (WTM) increases by about 17 % . This is not the case if their choice is observed by the wave-2 participant after that participant has already made their choice, which demonstrates that it is indeed the possibility of influence and not only observability that matters. Increasing influence at the extensive margin, i.e. increasing the number of wave-2 participants observing the choice, does not increase WTM. We also elicit beliefs and find that most participants overestimate how much influence they have. • Having social influence increases people’s willingness to mitigate their carbon impact. • However it is difficult to scale up these effects. • People tend to overestimate how much influence they have.