Soft Economic Incentives and Soft Behavioral Interventions on the Public?s Green Purchasing Behaviour-The Evidence from China

Purpose: To explore the effects of soft behavioral intervention policies (eg, green emotions, social norms) and soft economic incentive policies (eg, high-intensity subsidies, low-intensity subsidies) and their combinations on the public's green product purchasing behavior.Participants and Methods: An online questionnaire experiment was conducted on Chinese users using Credamo online ques-tionnaire platform to explore the effects of different soft intervention policies on consumers' green purchasing behavior, and the sample data were examined using multiple regression. In Study 1, a total of 460 valid samples were collected to explore the differences in the effects of single intervention policies; in Study 2, a total of 556 valid samples were collected to explore the effects of a combination of soft policies.Results: In the area of green product purchasing, both behavioral interventions and economic incentives alone can promote green consumption behavior; economic incentives have a more positive impact on guiding consumers to green consumption; the combination of soft behavioral interventions and soft economic incentives has a positive impact on green consumption. The combination of soft behavioral intervention policies and soft economic incentive policies is more effective than the individual policies.Conclusion: The experimental results of Study 1 show that the policy effects of both behavioral intervention policies and economic incentive intervention policies are evident for goods with different value attributes. Meanwhile, comparing the two types of soft intervention policies, we find that the effect of economic incentive intervention policies is stronger than that of soft behavioral intervention policies. In Study 2, the empirical analysis of the policy mix shows that the policy mix is more effective. The combination of soft economic incentive policies and soft behavioral intervention policies can effectively increase the salience of policy instruments, and the effect of policy combinations is greater than that of single policies.

Automated summary

This study explores the effects of behavioral intervention policies and economic incentive policies on the public's green product purchasing behavior. It found that economic incentives have a positive impact on promoting green consumption, and the combination of soft behavioral interventions and soft economic incentives also has a positive impact on green consumption.