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We analyze whether exposure to a nature documentary increases pro-environmental behavior (PEB). We test this causal link in an experiment where subjects viewed a video featuring either an urban (control treatment) or a nature setting (nature treatment). We consider two types of behavior: a monetary donation to an environmental non-governmental organization (ENGO) that we call an eco-donation, and subsequently, a non-monetary decision (i.e., recycle or not recycle headphone protectors) that we call an eco-action. We find that virtual exposure to nature boosts both eco-donation and eco-action. Interestingly, the increase in PEB only occurs for individuals who express low environmental values. We did not find any negative or positive spillover effects on the eco-action. We finally provide robustness checks and discuss policy implications.

International audience; This paper deals with the role played by incidental emotions on trust decisions. Based on a laboratory experiment with monetary incentives, we explore the way positive and negative emotions impact transfers in a trust game. In addition, we investigate the mechanism through which risk intervenes in the relationship between emotions and trust. Our results suggest that negative emotions influence trust positively, whereas positive emotions decrease trust. This effect disappears once risk is included to the game. Furthermore, we found that transfer in the trust game is driven by otherregarding preferences and by risk preferences.

Cause-related products are more and more spread in the marketplace. They have the potential to raise substantial funds for not-for-profit organizations and to increase bottom-line profits for businesses. They allow consumers to support a non-for-profit action at a very low cost. This contribution characterizes cause-related products and purchase-triggered donations and identifies the motives of the different partners involved in the process. It also stresses the role of fiscal laws in shaping firms’ strategies as well as several possible undesirable and counter-productive effects caused by these partnerships. Two case studies are presented to support the analysis.; Les produits partage se développent de plus en plus et se positionnent comme un partenariat mutuellement gagnant pour les entreprises, cherchant à augmenter leurs profits, pour les associations, soucieuses de collecter des fonds, et pour les consommateurs désireux de contribuer à faible coût à une cause. Cette contribution caractérise la notion de produits partage et identifie les motivations sous-jacentes à l’implication des différents protagonistes. Elle met également en évidence l’importance du régime fiscal dans les stratégies implémentées par les entreprises et souligne certains risques d’effets pervers ou contre-productifs engendrés par ces initiatives. L’analyse s’appuie sur deux études de cas relatifs à des produits partage.

Industrialists may promote eco-labeling schemes in order to gain the support of environmentalists and ultimately gain market protection. Beyond the environmental effects of such coalitions, these schemes can provide industrialists a legitimate way to disadvantage rivals, frequently foreign rivals, by raising their costs. We consider a Stackelberg model that determines the conditions under which a domestic firm has incentive to impose an eco-label in order to raise the costs of its foreign rivals. The effects of eco-labeling on domestic social welfare are ambiguous. Policy recommendations are drawn. Notably, factors that may help policy makers to identify situations more vulnerable to undesirable outcomes from a welfare viewpoint are developed.

The use of economic incentives for biodiversity (mostly Compensation and Reward for Environmental Services including Payment for ES) has been widely supported in the past decades and became the main innovative policy tools for biodiversity conservation worldwide. These policy tools are often based on the insight that rational actors perfectly weigh the costs and benefits of adopting certain behaviors and well-crafted economic incentives and disincentives will lead to socially desirable development scenarios. This rationalist mode of thought has provided interesting insights and results, but it also misestimates the context by which ‘real individuals’ come to decisions, and the multitude of factors influencing development sequences. In this study, our goal is to examine how these policies can take advantage of some unintended behavioral reactions that might in return impact, either positively or negatively, general policy performances. We test the effect of income's origin (‘Low effort’ based money vs. ‘High effort’ based money) on spending decisions (Necessity vs. Superior goods) and subsequent pro social preferences (Future pro-environmental behavior) within Madagascar rural areas, using a natural field experiment. Our results show that money obtained under low effort leads to different consumption patterns than money obtained under high efforts: superior goods are more salient in the case of low effort money. In parallel, money obtained under low effort leads to subsequent higher pro social behavior. Compensation and rewards policies for ecosystem services may mobilize knowledge on behavioral biases to improve their design and foster positive spillovers on their development goals.

In this article, we try to elicit whether an information on food safety is consistent with a more environmental-friendly agriculture. As the policy makers generally intervene to limit negative externalities in agriculture on the supply side, is a labelling policy an efficient way to reduce pollution levels in this sector? The intuitive reason of a food safety label rests on the fact that consumers seem to be more concerned with information on food safety aspects than on environmental ones. In a vertical differentiation model, we analyse the impacts of labels mentioning food safety and environmental aspects, on firms' profits, consumers' surplus and pollution levels. Given our main assumption that food safety and environmental consequences are directly linked, our principal results show that a labelling policy on food safety can be efficient from an environmental point of view, depending on the initial healthy products proportion in the market. Another result is based on the fact that a label policy can reduce consumer's surplus.

A usual explanation to low levels of contribution to public goods is the fear of getting the sucker’s payoff (cooperation by the participant and defection by the other players). In order to disentangle the effect of this fear from other motives, we design a public good game where people have an insurance against getting the sucker’s payoff. We show that contributions to the public good under this ‘protective’ design are significantly higher and interact with expectations on other individuals' contribution to the public good. Some policy implications and extensions are suggested.

We develop a vertical differentiation model for the setting of standards and labeling in an international economy with two countries, North (N) and South (S) under two regimes: Autarky and International Trade. We assume that a firm in country S has a comparative advantage in producing low quality goods while a firm in country N has comparative advantage in producing high quality goods. Under Autarky each country sets a specific standard and the domestic firm behaves as a monopolist. Under International Trade both countries agree on harmonized standards and firms compete in the unified market. We show that standards harmonization is welfare enhancing compared to the Autarky scenario and that the introduction of a national label in country N does not lead to a Pareto improvement in country S. Consumers in both countries will be worse off with the introduction of the label, for low levels of firm S's comparative advantage.

The Laboratory of Forestry economics (LEF) was created in 2000 as a joint research unit of the French Institute of Forestry, Agricultural and Environmental Engineering (ENGREF) and the National Institute of Agronomic research (INRA). The mission of the LEF is to conceive, develop, and transfer methods and tools of economic analysis to improve the management of the goods, services and products of the forest and the forestry sector. The aim of this issue of the “Cahiers du LEF” is to present the results of the researchs of the forest economics laobratory between 2003 and 2007.

Depuis le debut des annees 1990 et notamment en reaction a la deforestation en cours dans les zones tropicales, une attention particuliere a ete portee a l’exploitation des forets dans le monde. Le concept de gestion forestiere durable a emerge au “Sommet de la Terre”, a Rio, en 1992 (Barthod, 1993). Il implique que « les ressources forestieres et les terrains boises devraient etre geres sur une base durable, afin de repondre aux besoins sociaux, economiques, ecologiques, culturels et spirituels des generations actuelles et futures » (1). Il a ete decline a Helsinki, en 1993, lors de la Seconde Conference ministerielle pour la protection des forets en Europe (Barthod et Touzet, 1994). La suspicion de non-conformite a ces principes etait des lors susceptible de representer un risque pour le marche des produits forestiers, mais offrait aussi l’occasion de promouvoir une meilleure gestion des forets, voire l’utilisation du bois en tant que materiau “ecologique”. C’est pourquoi de grands groupes de distribution, des usagers de la foret ou encore des organisations non gouvernementales (ONG) ont commence a solliciter, de la part des producteurs forestiers, la fourniture de produits certifies comme etant issus d’une gestion durable.

Le travail envisagé dans le projet de recherche NORMES a deux objectifs. Premièrement, nous essaierons de mettre en évidence et de caractériser les motivations internes des agents économiques en matière environnementale en termes de comportements individuels. La question centrale sera ici celle de la manière dont les motivations internes conduit les individus à réduire leur pollution par exemple ou à accroître leur contribution à la protection de l'environnement; et, de voir leur application au domaine des Déchets Ménagers et Assimilés (DMAs). Deuxièmement, nous essaierons de voir comment il est possible de traduire ces résultats en termes institutionnels et décisionnels, et d’envisager comment de nouvelles normes sociales peuvent potentiellement apparaître. Ces normes sont les seules garantes d’une orientation durable des comportements.Ce projet qui vise à mieux comprendre les motivations des individus dans leurs comportements vis-à-vis des déchets, a permis de donner un certain nombre d'éléments de réponse aux questions suivantes.Quel type d’information peut pousser les individus à changer de comportements dans les domaines de la prévention et du tri des déchets? Quels sont les effets induits par ce type de communication? Quelle articulation prévoir entre motivations interne et externe?Comment peut on mettre en place une norme sociale, étant donné que celle de la prévention et celle du tri sont inégalement installées?Dans le cadre du projet nous avons organisé deux manifestations; une à vocation scientifique afin de réunir certains spécialistes sur les questions de l'économie de la gestion des déchets; et une autre à vocation plus opérationnelle qui a permis des discussions sur comment traduire les résultats de recherches en politiques efficaces.