Research

Can purely behavioral aspects affect voluntary cooperativeness in isomorphic social dilemma games? We experimentally test isomorphic invariance by comparing frames whose identical payoffs are described as of the Prisoners’ Dilemma or the linear Public Good. Participants play two consecutive rounds of the same frame, with no between-round feedback information, interacting with either the same or a different number of other subjects in each round. Hence, frames are compared between subjects whereas games with different numerosity are compared both within subjects and between subjects. Our analysis rejects isomorphic invariance and shows significantly lower average cooperativeness in the linear Public Good frame across all conditions. Moreover, we find a significantly negative effect of group size, especially in Prisoners’ Dilemma.

Date marking is intended to help consumers make informed food safety and quality choices when confronted with perishable food products. We provide causal in-store evidence on how EU-style date marking (best before and use by) influences consumers’ valuation of perishable food around the expiry date. In a preparatory survey (n=100), we first identify perishable food items amenable to experimental manipulation. A modified multiple price list (MPL) experiment (n=200) then tests shoppers’ valuation of perishable food with expiry dates in the future and the past. We vary date mark type (use-by versus best-before) and information status (with and without education) while preventing free disposal censoring. We find that expiry dates affect consumer valuation. Variation in date mark type has little practical relevance. Educating consumers about the meaning of date mark types reduces willingness to pay for potentially unsafe food, but does not increase it for more durable items. An attentiveness experiment (n=160) finds that inattention and consumers’ native understanding of current date marks can explain the evidence from the modified MPL experiment. Jointly, these results help explaining existing observational evidence and assessing the prospects of consumer education campaigns.

Laboratory experiments have been often replaced by online experiments in the last decade. This trend has been reinforced when academic and research work based on physical interaction had to be suspended due to restrictions imposed to limit the spread of Covid-19. Therefore, data quality and results from web experiments have become an issue which is currently investigated. Are there significant differences between lab experiments and online findings? We contribute to this debate via an experiment aimed at comparing results from a novel online protocol with traditional laboratory settings, using the same pool of participants. We find that participants in our experiment behave in a similar way across settings and that there are at best weakly significant and quantitatively small differences in behavior observed using our online protocol and physical laboratory setting.

Despite growing recognition that image considerations underlie the adoption of second-hand goods, research in this domain has largely overlooked the possibility that different image dimensions operate through distinct channels. Using a vignette experiment on a nationally representative Italian sample (N = 10,496), this paper disentangles the effects of three image perspectives—self-image, social image, and second-order self-image (beliefs about others’ self-image)—across four main dimensions of second-hand adoption: financial, social, environmental, and hygiene. Contrary to findings in other behavioral domains, self-image emerges as the stronger predictor of intention to adopt second-hand, with the largest gaps over social image for hygiene and social-approval dimensions and the smallest—though still significant—for environmental considerations. Within self-image, hygiene and financial considerations are the strongest correlates of adoption, while environmental consciousness is the weakest; yet it becomes relevant under other-oriented perspectives (social and second-order), suggesting it operates more as a social signal than a private value. Participants also systematically underestimate how positively others view themselves when engaging in second-hand adoption, and this underestimation depresses adoption intentions more than overestimation boosts them—a pattern consistent with pluralistic ignorance that may act as a self-reinforcing barrier to adoption.

Although consumers may wish to act in environmentally responsible ways, informational barriers can prevent them from accurately understanding the true environmental costs of their consumption choices. We investigate how presenting different types of environmental costs (CO2 emissions, energy consumption, or water usage) affects willingness to purchase second-hand clothing. We measure changes in stated purchasing intentions and, using multiple price list, incentivized choices in a large, nationally representative sample of Italians (N = 10,496). We report three main findings. First, all information treatments promote second-hand adoption, but the choice of metric matters: water-based information generates the strongest effects than CO2—the dominant metric in sustainability communication. Second, pro-environmental behavior amplifies responsiveness, particularly for water-based information, while need for uniqueness acts as a barrier, with high-NFU individuals requiring more compensation to switch to second-hand. Third, local environmental conditions do not systematically moderate treatment effects. Our findings indicate that reframing environmental information from CO2 to more tangible metrics like water can meaningfully enhance sustainability campaigns, though reaching beyond already environmentally engaged consumers remains an open challenge.

The transition to a circular economy requires a reduction of raw materials and resources that become waste at the end of the production and consumption cycles. To correct consumers’ and firms’ incentives, we highlight the role and design of “incentive-based instruments” with particular attention to unit based pricing and deposit-refund schemes. Subsequently, we outline significant results from the empirical literature regarding the effectiveness of the use of incentive based instruments. We then take into consideration the contributions proposed by a more recent literature, focused on the individual and social drivers underlying waste management behaviours, to evaluate the importance of moral motivations and awareness of environmental problems, but also of social norms.