Journal
EUROPEAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
Volume 129, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103569
Keywords
Meat paradox; Self-deception; Price elasticity; Moral wiggle room
Categories
Funding
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [CRC TRR 190]
- ANR [ANR-17-EURE-0010]
- IDEX chair AMEP
- FDIR chair
- IAST
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Many individuals have empathetic feelings towards animals but frequently consume meat. We investigate this meat paradox using insights from the literature on motivated reason ing in moral dilemmata. We develop a model where individuals form self-serving beliefs about the suffering of animals caused by meat consumption in order to alleviate the guilt associated with their dietary choices. The model predicts that the price of meat has a causal effect on individuals' beliefs: high prices foster realism by lowering the returns to self-deception, which magnifies the price elasticity of meat consumption. The model also predicts a positive relationship between individuals' taste for meat and their propensity to engage in self-deception, a causal effect of aggregate consumption on individual beliefs, and the coexistence of equilibria of collective realism and collective denial. (c) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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