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Scandals are frequently considered as detrimental for involved businesses. When hotels serve as a backdrop and are collateral victims of scandals caused by high-profile individuals, we argue that entrepreneurially minded executives can envision scandals as an unexpected opportunity, likely to bring good news to the involved hotels. Tourism businesses offer supportive evidence. In a constructivist perspective, scandals and their consequences do not result from the transgression seriousness, but are socially constructed. Entrepreneurially minded individuals influence this social construction and seek to transform scandals into entrepreneurial opportunities. We analyse whether and how hospitality executives can channel the a priori destructive forces involved in a scandal eruption towards a direction aligned with their own interests. We identify three potential mechanisms by which hospitality executives can make the best of scandals, namely, by increasing exposure and attracting attention at a low cost, offering a basis for differentiation and innovation and generating useful marketing data. We identify some conditions that make this outcome more likely. Rather than just avoiding or containing the scandal consequences, we propose to equip hospitality executives with a scandal management plan that explicitly considers the bright side of scandals.

Building on previous literature on corporate behavior, we examine the impact of an nongovernmental organization’s (NGO) foreign status on the moral judgment of its actions in a host country. Individuals in Algeria ( N = 450) rated the ethicality of analogous ethical and unethical actions of domestic (Algerian) and foreign NGOs (European). For ethical actions, a foreign NGO was considered less positively than a local NGO for two scenarios out of three. For unethical actions, a foreign NGO was judged more severely in one scenario only. These results suggest that foreign status can influence moral judgment in a way that is consistent with liability-of-foreignness effect predictions. A foreign-sounding denomination can put an NGO at a relative disadvantage compared with its domestic counterpart. Consequently, the denomination choice should be carefully examined.

Recent findings in behavioural sciences suggest that individuals may engage more in pro-social behaviour if they are prompted to reflect on how they will be remembered. Using experimental survey data with a between-subjects design, we examine the relevance of activating legacy concerns in the context of small businesses. More precisely, we investigate farmers' intention to participate in conservation programmes for the sake of legacy. While the legacy effect is not found to be stronger than another priming manipulation at the global level, it is significant among first-generation farmers as opposed to multi-generation farmers. Inherited family farms are more prone to be influenced by non-environmental legacies whereas first-generation farmers can be more interested in leaving an environmental legacy. ARTICLE HISTORY

Scandals are pervasive in many areas of human life. Organizational leaders are human, and sometimes they are involved in scandalous issues that affect the organization. We propose a characterization of scandals that explicitly considers the potential benefits of scandals for transgressors. Even if scandals are frequently considered as undesirable for the targets or transgressors, we develop four rationales by which scandals can be beneficial for the scandal targets. First, scandals can propel the individual and the organization or cause into the limelight and generate a low cost publicity that can serve the interest of the target, e.g., by increasing the visibility and salience of a given issue or getting the right-to-explain what happened with great mass media coverage. Second, scandal targets can decide to serve as altruistic or egoistic scapegoats. Third, scandal targets can use scandals to divert attention from more serious issues. Fourth, scandals can constitute a way to disadvantage competitors or foes who would be more harmed than the initial self-inflicted target. Moreover, for each rationale, we suggest some conditions of its success. Anecdotal evidence and real-world examples are also provided to illustrate and support these rationales.

International audience; In contrast with the increasing green demands from various stakeholders, corporations might prefer green blushing, that is, deliberately avoiding communicating their efforts for sustainable development. Surprisingly, these companies make substantial green achievements, but decide not to communicate their greenness. Using a broad literature review on green blushing and a conceptual reasoning backed up by anecdotal evidence, we expose the likely consequences of under-communicating green achievements and develop several rationales that explain this apparent puzzle. We also propose that silent or timid corporations can make the best of two worlds, by taking advantage from communicating their greenness while avoiding its main pitfalls. We suggest practical ways to do it.

International audience; The moral judgment of theft against a company is related to the company origin, but all origins are not created equal. Foreign companies are not systematically disadvantaged compared to domestic ones. Foreign companies from in-group origins could be at an advantage compared to similar foreign companies from out-group origins. A theft is judged more leniently when the victim is from the out-group than one from the in-group.

International audience; A common practice in managerial and public service contexts is to quantity, calculate, and use numbers and metrics which provide a presumption of scientificity, a sense of measurability, objectivity, reliability, and precision upon which smarter decisions can be made. Besides providing a theoretical background, we analyze counter-productive effects of over-relying on numbers and metrics, notably in public administration. We discuss the following traps: preferring what is measurable over what is important, replacing the strategy by a measure and dehumanizing the decision making. We suggest some practical ways to facilitate a more parsimonious, smarter, and adequate use of numbers.

International audience; We analyze positional concerns in the unethical domain. We introduce an original distinction between "selective" positionality-where individuals prefer behaving unethically but to a lesser extent than peers-and "ego" positionality-where they prefer behaving unethically but to a higher extent than peers, regardless of the absolute level. We also report the results of an exploratory survey in Algeria that exploits the counterintuitive insight that people are better at predicting others' behaviors than their own behaviors. We increase the finding's generalizability by conducting the same survey among a similar sample in France. Our findings are twofold: first, the majority of participants attributes to others preferences for ethical (i.e., where everyone is honest) and unethical egalitarian (where all are similarly dishonest) situations. Second, a non-negligible proportion of respondents attributes to the average individual preferences for either selective or ego-positionality in unethical behaviors.

We blend the institutional and social identity theories to explain why foreign companies may endure a differentiated treatment compared to domestic ones. We extend the “liability of foreignness” (LOF) reasoning to the moral domain. Using a survey experiment in Algeria and France, we examine whether observers judge similarly or differently the same ethical and unethical practices by manipulating the doers’ origin. Each treatment corresponds to a specific combination of company behavior (ethical vs. unethical) and company origin (no origin mentioned vs. domestic origin vs. foreign origin). We found that company origin matters for the ethical and some unethical scenarios. However, the foreignness consequences in the moral domain are not always consistent with a simplistic application of LOF-based arguments, leading us to consider a more complex picture than initially expected. In the Algerian sample, we found that foreign companies can even benefit from an advantage compared to domestic ones. JEL CLASSIFICATION F23; C91

We examine whether the number of lawyers representing a defendant impacts third parties’ moral judgments and recommended punishments for similar offenses. Specifically, we use an experimental survey with a between-subjects design to examine third parties’ perceptions regarding the seriousness of fraud and tax evasion offenses and the punishments they deem appropriate for these offenses. Our benchmark analysis suggests that subjects’ perceived severity and seriousness of both offenses are significantly increasing in the number of lawyers representing the defendant. These results could be driven both by a direct impact of legal representation on third parties’ perceptions and preferences for punishment, or by third parties updating their beliefs regarding the seriousness of these offenses based on the defendant’s legal expenditures. To investigate whether the latter mechanism may be driving results, we conduct a second experimental survey wherein subjects are informed that the number of lawyers has been randomly determined. This causes the significant relationship between the perceived seriousness of the offense and the number of lawyers to vanish. However, for fraud offenses, increasing the number of lawyers from one to more lawyers increases third parties’ recommended sanctions, which is consistent with a psychological phenomenon of ‘luck envy’.

International audience; Do outside observers judge differently an identical act of robbery if the victim is known as a robber rather than an honest individual? Popular wisdom, as magnified in several proverbs, suggests that most people do. We examine such a tenet using an experimental survey in Algeria (North-Africa). We also examine whether a differentiated moral judgement holds for two occupations tarnished with the reputation of robbing consumers, namely bankers and customs officials. Our findings support the proverb that ‘robbing a robber is not robbing’ and even its extension to custom officials. However, robbing a banker has not been found to be significantly different from robbing an honest individual. We draw several business and policy implications.

Background Mycoplasma genitalium (MG) is an emerging pathogen among men who have sex with men (MSM) with raising rates of antibiotic resistance. This study assessed the prevalence and incidence of MG infection in MSM enrolled in the open-label phase of the ANRS IPERGAY trial with on-demand tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine for human immunodeficiency virus prevention and the impact of doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). Methods 210 subjects were tested at baseline and at 6 months by real-time PCR assays for MG detection in urine samples and oropharyngeal and anal swabs. Resistance to azithromycin (AZM), to fluoroquinolones (FQs), and to doxycycline was investigated in the French National Reference Center of Bacterial Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). Results The all-site prevalence of MG at baseline was 10.5% (6.3% in urine samples, 4.3% in anal swabs, 0.5% in throat swabs) and remained unchanged at 6 months whether or not PEP was used: 9.9% overall, 10.2% with PEP, 9.6% without. The overall rate of MG resistance (prevalent and incident cases) to AZM and FQs was 67.6% and 9.1%, respectively, with no difference between arms. An in vivo mutation of the MG 16S rRNA, which could be associated with tetracycline resistance, was observed in 12.5% of specimens tested. Conclusions The prevalence of MG infection among MSM on pre-exposure prophylaxis was high and its incidence was not decreased by doxycycline prophylaxis with a similar high rate of AZM and FQ resistance, raising challenging issues for the treatment of this STI and supporting current recommendations to avoid testing or treatment of asymptomatic MG infection.

We propose that words can be an object of systematic study in the field of economics and outline an approach to the study of word choice in behavioral economics. We consider words as strategic instruments of influence and review how they can impact behaviors in several subtle and distinctive ways, namely through their capacity to elicit affect, support identity and social belonging, evoke linguistic associations, and generate bias arising from variations in fluency. We provide a variety of examples to illustrate the behavioral impacts of words through these mechanisms and provide practical recommendations regarding how words can be harnessed by policymakers to reach socially desirable goals through a consideration of how word-related behavioral anomalies shape incentives.

International audience; Better aligning agriculture and environmental policies is an important issue for Mediterranean areas. Minimizing conflicts between the two sectors requires better understanding farmers’ concerns. Using survey data among a sample of livestock farmers in the French Mediterranean Alps, we examine the main constraints they are con- fronted with. While France has adopted environmental policies aimed at the conservation of natural habitats and wildlife, which have contributed to a “rewilding ” of mountains, farmers’ responses suggest that the growing presence of wolves is a major concern, in addition to institutional and market-related constraints. Given that grassland changes, notably agricultural land abandonment in Mediterranean areas, is considered as problematic for its consequences on agriculture, biodiversity and landscape management, we examine whether the con- straints perceived by farmers are related to land abandonment. Applying a probit regression to our survey data, we show that farmers’ perception of the wolf’s presence is positively associated with the level of abandonment of alpine grasslands. It is the only perceived constraint significantly associated with land abandonment. Our results have implications for the design of land use policies to support the permanence of mountain farming and to help livestock breeders confront their particular constraints.

We use survey data to test whether it pays to cooperate in innovation activities with rivals (also referred to as coopetition) compared to other cooperative arrangements, notably with non-rival partners. Applying an ordinary least squares regression to a large sample of French firms (N = 2957), we found evidence of a positive and significant relationship between various forms of cooperation (with and without rivals) and firms' economic performance, measured by EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). Results show that cooperation with rival and non-rivals taken together increases economic performance, but that the impact of cooperation with rivals is lower than the impact of cooperation with non-rivals. Estimation results suggest that reaping the full cooperation benefits is not automatic and requires precision dosing and management.

Previous literature found empirical evidence to the scope-severity paradox (SSP), corresponding to situations where the perceived harm of a wrongdoing or crime decreases with the number of victims. We examine this phenomenon for the perpetrators’ side. Using a survey experiment, we examine whether increasing the number of perpetrators of a crime, namely a fraud, decreases its perceived severity (and subsequent punishment) at the individual level. Two scenarios are examined corresponding to two kinds of fraud: a fraud committed by a financial adviser against his/her own employer (scenario 1) and a tax evasion by an executive (scenario 2). Overall, our results do not offer a clear-cut support for the scope-severity paradox for the perpetrators’ side, even if some secondary results can be indicative of a possible SSP in some circumstances. More precisely, in the case of a financial fraud, the stated severity increases when the number of perpetrators is low. We discuss the implications of our results and raise important issues for future research.

International audience; Some experimental and archival studies have found empirical support for the scope-severity paradox (SSP), according to which the perceived harm of the same crime or wrongdoing decreases when the number of victims is greater. In the context of environmental wrongdoing, we investigate whether the SSP applies when the number of perpetrators of a crime or wrongdoing increases. Using a survey experiment with two scenarios and five treatments (variations of the number of perpetrators and the individual and total harms committed), we test whether the perceived severity and punishment recommendation for perpetrators of an environmental wrongdoing decrease as the number of perpetrators increases, independent of the total environmental harm committed. Unlike the studies that look at the SSP phenomenon as regards number of victims, we do not find direct support for the existence of a SSP effect regarding number of perpetrators. We do find, however, that participants evaluating the one-perpetrator treatments are more likely to judge with the highest severity. We also provide some collateral insights such as the insensitiveness of participants to the individual pollution level, once the environmental damage exceeds a certain threshold. Our results extend previous SSP studies in important directions and suggest some policy implications, and avenues for further research.

Health messaging interventions frequently make three well-intentioned but mistaken choices in their communications strategies. To increase their persuasiveness, these messages frequently call attention to the greatest possible numbers of people engaging in undesirable behavior, victims of this behavior, and reasons why one should change the behavior. We raise recent research suggesting how and why the intuitively attractive more-is-better heuristic can be unproductive, and suggest ways to overcome these pitfalls.

International audience; Individuals have mainly preferences for ethical jobs, and companies with bad ethical reputation have to offer higher wages to recruit. Social responsibility concerns are context dependent. Individuals' choices are not all predominantly oriented toward the moral high ground. A significant proportion of respondents refuse to trade-off ethical preferences for money.

We examine the relevance of relative standings in Algeria (North Africa). We focus on the workplace, by considering domains generally important in this specific context: income, extra wage, office size, free days, worked hours, days being ill, offered company car, traffic jam when going to work, and being praised and berated by supervisor. Respondents prefer equality situations (i.e., where everyone has the same endowment) rather than positional and absolute ones (i.e., where they have the highest relative and absolute levels, respectively). An exception is found regarding praise by supervisor where the proportions of individuals choosing positional states are the highest. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

International audience; In a contribution conducted in the French Southern Alps,Hinojosa et al. (2016)suggested that place attachmentis relatively higher where it is difficult to live. We examine whether thisfigure holds in other environmentsbringing insight on a likely general tenet. A study using comparable survey data in two different ecosystems ofEcuador (the mountains and the subtropics) reveals, indeed, that higher place difficulty predicts increased at-tachment. Nevertheless, our results show that place difficulty is not significant when considered solely, that is,regardless of an additional element: place identity. In the Andean mountains, place attachment is found to behigher in more difficult areas only when place identity plays a role in individuals' views of their local community(their district). In the subtropical area of Intag, place difficulty is found to be a predictor of attachment regardlessof place identity.

International audience; Using two studies, we examine the dilution effect for green products, by testing whether advertising green benefits decreases their perceived instrumentality and thus harms sustainable development. We use a between‐subject design and ask participants to evaluate the efficacy of a pen (Study 1) and a dish detergent (Study 2) with and without environmental attributes. Our results are inconsistent with the predictions of the dilution model because the perceived instrumentality of both products does not decrease when environmental benefits are added. Our findings are relevant for eco‐labeling given anecdotal evidence suggesting that adding green information can harm the perceived quality of products.

Using a laboratory experiment in a developing country (Tunisia, North Africa), we investigate whether the level of monitoring and both the nature (monetary versus moral) and magnitude of sanctions influence cheating levels. Our findings show that the introduction of weak monetary sanctions and monitoring is likely to increase cheating. However, a perfect monitoring is found to decrease the level of cheating. Moreover, when combined with a perfect monitoring, moral sanctions matter and may be even more effective than strong monetary sanctions in reducing cheating. We draw some policy implications regarding cheating in various domains. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

International audience; Numerous studies showed that people respond more generously to individual identified victims than to equivalent statistical victims, which is referred to as the “identifiable victim effect” (IVE). While the previous literature examined the IVE for human and animal victims, we focus on vegetal entities that can be threatened. Thanks to a between design allowing to increase the degree of plants' identifiability, we test whether IVE is likely to enhance farmers' participation in a conservation program, using mail survey data among a sample of French farmers located in the Vaucluse area. Unlike humans and animals, we found that IVE does not matter regarding plants, as farmer willingness to participate in the compensation measures was found to decrease as the (plant) victim(s) become more identifiable. Moreover, this figure is even stronger with respect to organic farmers compared to their conventional counterparts.

Even in a world with zero transaction costs, status seeking can prevent efficient Coasean bargaining. Using simple illustrations and various examples, we show that ignoring this impediment can explain the failure of some negotiations where an efficient bargain seems a priori reachable and expected. Rather than just emphasizing this neglected issue, we discuss various institutional and behavioral strategies by which this impediment can be overcome and even strategically used in socially desirable directions, such as bargaining over status.

International audience; Using an original and large database on more than 6000 French firms over a 5 years period we add empirical evidence regarding the effect of environmental investments on economic performance, measured by firms' net profits. We apply a fixed-effects model at the firm year level which controls for unobserved heterogeneity. We show that this effect follows an almost U-inverted curve, implying that there is an optimal level of environmental investment. Too little or too much environmental effort can be detrimental to a firm's economic performance. Looking more specifically at the shape of the curve, we found that the effect of green investments on economic performance does not exactly follow a perfectly balanced U-inverted function. The part of the curve where investing more in greenness improves profits is reduced and the optimal point is quickly reached, implying that for most firms in our sample, only ‘limited’ green investments are profitable. In other words, win-win strategies exist but they are likely to be quickly ‘exhausted’. This finding also suggests that ‘systematically’ encouraging firms to be always greener can be detrimental to economic performance, when the firms are located beyond the turning point. From a dynamic perspective, managing finely the tensions between green commitments in relation with various stakeholders and the pursuit of profitability can become increasingly complex and costly, but this ability can constitute the key determining whether the chosen level of green investments will be conducive or detrimental to economic performance improvement.

International audience; Campaigns aiming to encourage people to reduce their energy consumption frequently make three well-intentioned but inadvertent mistakes in their communications strategies. These mistakes are driven by a deeply embedded yet often counterproductive popular intuition: that ‘more is better.’ We identify three messaging pitfalls that can result from this assumption, namely that a message will be more persuasive if it emphasizes the greatest number of people engaging in undesirable behavior, the greatest number of victims of such behavior, and the greatest number of reasons why one should adopt particular energy conservation and efficiency measures. We cite experimental evidence demonstrating that these strategies can in fact reduce the persuasive power of a message, and review several underlying psychological mechanisms that may explain these counterproductive effects. Finally, we provide a number of alternative messaging strategies that are likely to improve the performance of energy conservation campaigns.

We empirically investigate whether labor productivity is related to work recognition. Using survey data about a large sample of French firms (N = 5309), we find that firms in which employees think their work is recognized are likely to report higher labor productivity, compared with firms where employees do not feel recognized. Our estimation results also suggest that labor productivity is strongly related to wages.

People in several countries are overwhelmed with green tips in order to encourage them protecting the environment. The effectiveness of these tips, however, highly depends on the context and the person targeted by the tips. In particular, we contend that some green tips may do more harm than good when individuals have cognitive and behavioral biases. Without purporting to be exhaustive, we explain some of these biases and mechanisms by which green tips may lead to a net environmental degradation. We also emphasize that it is possible to complement green tips with debiasing strategies to guarantee their performance. We present some of these strategies, notably the foot-in-the-door technique, commitment strategies, the strategic use of small changes and individuals' pursuit of identity. Finally, several policy implications are developed.

We explore empirically the relevance of positional concerns in France. Unlike previous literature, we use two types of surveys, one addressed to a convenience sample, and the other to a random sample of French households living in the metropolitan area of Montpellier . Surveys are composed of a set of hypothetical questions related to several domains (income, education, vacation time, etc.). We also investigate whether individuals consider themselves more or less positional than others in society. Moreover, a set of variables that could potentially explain why people give positional answers is considered, such as being positional on a domain in which the individual excels. In addition to more conventional findings, we show that (i) the percentage of positional answers for each domain is about the same in the random and convenience samples, (ii) people consider others as more positional than themselves, and (iii) excelling in a given domain is not necessarily a good predictor of positional preferences in this domain.

International audience; We investigate empirically the role of moral and social concerns in farmers' decision to adopt integrated crop protection (IP) and organic farming (OF). A survey questionnaire has been sent to 1286 fruit-growers and vegetable producers located in the French areas of Alpes de Haute Provence, Hautes-Alpes and Vaucluse. Analysis of individual responses (N = 243) shows that, although economic concerns play a strong role, a significant number of respondents give high importance to moral and social ones. We also examine how these considerations matter according to different crop protection strategies, that is, conventional farming, IP and OF. Using a multinomial logistic regression, we find that (1) social concerns (e.g., showing to others one's environmental commitment) drive both IP and OF adoption, (2) moral concerns (e.g., do not feel guilty about one's choices) increase the probability of organic farming adoption only, and (3) farmers who give high importance to economic concerns (e.g., cutting production costs) are less likely to adopt OF

In line with Veblen's contributions on the "dark side" of commercial and political relationships, we show how promises can be used to manipulate the "common man." By imposing excessive access costs on potential promisees (e.g., citizens or consumers), a promiser (e.g., a politician or a firm) can benefit from making a promise without having to wholly fulfill it. These strategically manipulated access costs can be legitimized by the need to prevent abuse and fraud that exempts the promiser from being accused of cheating. Here, two case studies on promises offered to eligible households - the Food Stamp/Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and rebates - are developed. Some policy implications are drawn and extensions are suggested.

Les « alliances vertes » entre les entreprises et les associations de protection de l’environnement se fondent sur des relations d’interet mutuel et incluent differentes formes de cooperation. Malgre leurs promesses de resultats win-win, elles peuvent egalement generer des effets pervers. Apres avoir identifie des elements de definition et de typologie des alliances vertes, nous etudions les principaux determinants de l’adhesion des entreprises et des associations environnementales a ce type de partenariat et les risques d’instrumentalisation (reciproque) au sein ou par rapport aux alliances. Afin de rendre notre propos plus concret, nous presentons deux alliances vertes se referant a des echelles geographiques differentes, l’une entre Pollution Probe et le distributeur Loblaws (Canada), l’autre entre le WWF et la multinationale des materiaux de construction, Lafarge (France). Quelques implications en termes de politique economique sont mises en evidence.

Ist die Norm ISO 14001 wirksam ? Eine okonometrische Studie uber die franzosische Industrie ; Immer mehr franzosische Unternehmen beschliesen die Einfuhrung eines „ Umweltmanagementsystems“, das heist eines Systems zur Messung und Verringerung der Umweltbelastungen, das sie dann gemas der Norm ISO 14001 zertifi zieren lassen. In diesem Artikel soll die okologische Wirksamkeit dieser Praktik anhand einer Stichprobe von mehreren Tausend Industriebetrieben bewertet werden. Berucksichtigt werden verschiedene Umweltbelastungen : Emissionen von fl uchtigen organischen Verbindungen wie etwa Kohlendioxid, Kraftstoffund Gesamtenergieverbrauch sowie Wasserentnahmen. Die Daten decken mehrere Jahre ab, von 2001 bzw. 2003 bis 2005 je nach den Belastungen, so dass die bei der okonometrischen Schatzung nicht beobachtete Heterogenitat kontrolliert werden kann. Den Ergebnissen ist zu entnehmen, dass die zertifi zierten Betriebe ihre Anstrengungen darauf konzentrieren, nicht nur ihre Umweltschaden, sondern auch ihre Produktionskosten zu reduzieren. Unter sonst gleichen Gegebenheiten geht die Zertifi zierung nach der Norm ISO 14001 mit einem unmittelbaren Ruckgang der Wasserentnahmen um ca. 8 % einher. Es folgt eine schrittweise Reduzierung des Kohlendioxidausstoses sowie des Kraftstoffverbrauchs. Nach einer anfanglichen Zunahme des Stromverbrauchs sinkt der Energieverbrauch nach der Zertifi zierung um jahrlich 1 %. Allerdings scheint sie keine nennenswerten Auswirkungen auf die Emissionen von fl uchtigen organischen Verbindungen zu haben. Ist die Norm ISO 14001 wirksam ? Eine okonometrische Studie uber die franzosische Industrie

In France, agricultural land abandonment constitutes a critical issue. Mountains, in particular, are reckoned to be particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon; therefore, several policy measures attempt to maintain agricultural activities in mountains. In addition to the role of targeted subsidies in reducing abandonment of mountainous areas, we contend that place attachment helps explain the permanence of economic activity in these areas. By using survey data and controlling for several variables likely to influence place attachment, we investigated the relationship between place attachment and living in high or lower altitude mountains in a sample of livestock farmers in the French Southern Alps. Applying an ordered probit model, we found high-mountain farmers to be relatively more attached to their place compared to medium-mountain ones. Our findings also suggest that social relations at the family and neighborhood levels, satisfaction at work, and the distinctiveness farmers assign to a place are important factors of attachment. However, we found no significant association between place attachment and farm profitability. Several policy implications regarding agricultural abandonment and support for mountain livelihoods are derived.

International audience; We describe the different possibilities that a protagonist has to start a process to raise rival’s costs (RRC). We present the general RRC mechanism and necessary conditions to make it successful. We also expose the strengths and weaknesses of RRC theory.

"Gilles Grolleau and Naoufel Mzoughi thank the research programme ‘GESSOL’, sponsored by the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy"; The economic literature has devoted relatively strong attention to eco-labelling schemes. Nevertheless, while succeeding in some markets, they often fall short of their promises. We analyse the gap between the academic design of eco-labelling schemes and their real implementation. We contend that providing information is not enough. We then use recent advances in behavioural economics to inform policy makers on the potential of behavioural interventions in order to design better eco-labelling schemes. Policy relevance Many public policies, including eco-labelling schemes, are still based on an inaccurate description of human decision making, mainly borrowed from standard economics. However, numerous psychological and behavioural studies show that people reg-ularly behave in ways that contradict some standard assumptions of economic analysis. Departing from the conventional view that information-based policies such as eco-labelling schemes will quasi-automatically help mitigate issues such as climate change by guiding consumers' and firms decisions, we argue that information provision is necessary but not sufficient. Admitting that consumers' decisions are guided by factors other than price and information, and, taking systematically into account be-havioural biases can offer to policy makers low-cost levers with first-order effects in order to increase the environmental per-formance of eco-labels, or at least decrease the likelihood of counterproductive effects.