ZEW Publishes Special Issue on Behavioural Economic Aspects in Environmental Economics

The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) has published a special issue of the journal “Environmental and Resource Economics” addressing several approaches of behavioural economics in the context of environmental economics. The special issue, entitled “New Directions in Behavioural Environmental Economics”, features an introduction as well as nine contributions on recent research findings. The contributions had previously been presented at a ZEW workshop on behavioural environmental economics.

Behavioural economics are aimed at analysing individual behaviour in different situations both for the case of functioning and failing markets. Thereby, psychological, sociological, and philosophical approaches are used to extend traditional economic models. In view of the challenges associated with the global dimension of climate policy, free rider incentives as well as long-term emissions targets, research findings from the field of behavioural economics are of particular interest as they constitute new approaches to solving environmental problems. With the aim of addressing these challenges, ZEW and the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg jointly organised a workshop in March 2015, which allowed international researchers to present and discuss their findings on research questions related to behavioural environmental economics.

The contributions presented at this workshop were published in a special edition, which covers a broad range of topics, ranging from theoretical approaches to experimental studies and empirical analyses. The special edition particularly focuses on the long-term effects of non-monetary interventions and their interactions with monetary interventions with regard to energy saving. Moreover, the special edition includes various approaches of informal institutions with the aim of overcoming social obstacles in international climate policy. In their introductory article on  „Recent Trends in Behavioral Environmental Economics“, Dr. Martin Kesternich and Dr. Christiane Reif from the ZEW Research Department “Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Management“ and Professor Dirk Rübbelke, ZEW Research Associate and professor at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg shed light on recent developments in behavioural environmental economics and provide information regarding the thematic classification of the scientific contributions included in the special edition.