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We use behavioral and experimental economics to study a particular aspect of the economics of climate change: the potential trade-off between countries'' investments in mitigation versus adaptation. While mitigation of greenhouse gases can be viewed as a public good, adaptation to climate change is a private good, benefiting only the country or the individual that invests in adaptation. We use a one-shot public-goods game that deviates from the standard public-goods game by introducing a stochastic term to account for probabilistic destruction in a climate-change setting, where the probability density function is mapped to within-group levels of mitigation. We compare low-vulnerability and high-vulnerability treatments by varying the magnitude of disaster across treatments. Our results show that there is no significant difference in the level of mitigation across these treatments. Further, our results emphasize the role of trust in enhancing cooperation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Economic theory has invoked moral motivation as an explanation for the voluntary provision of public goods but is vague with regard to the specific moral concerns involved. Focusing on climate change as a case study, this paper relates morally-motivated public good provision to the six moral foundations (MFs) identified by moral psychologists: Care, Fairness and Liberty (individual-focused), and Loyalty, Authority and Sanctity (group-focused). Using data from the European Social Surveys it is found that using the MFs in addition to standard explanatory variables improves the explanation of climate-friendly behaviors and endorsement of climate-friendly regulations. While the Fairness and Care foundations are strong and robust predictors of the dependent variables, the Loyalty foundation contributes positively only when neglecting the nature of climate change mitigation as a global public good. More generally, in contrast to the individual-focused MFs (that apply to all individuals), the group-focused MFs are of little direct relevance to climate change mitigation – consistent with the benefit from mitigation extending beyond the in-group (family, neighborhood, region, or nation) to which these MFs refer. Group-focused MFs are only of indirect relevance as their endorsement fosters general environmental concern. • Voluntary public good provision is frequently explained by moral motivation, • Moral psychologists have identified six fundamental moral concerns potentially relevant to public good provision. • Using the six moral foundations (MFs) improves the explanation of climate-friendly behaviors. • Individual-focused (universalist) MFs, not group-focused MFs, are positively related to climate-friendly behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]