Increasing consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for environmentally friendly products is a key challenge for sustainable development in market economies. Still, how consumers react to favorable and unfavorable environmental information of different quantitative extents is largely unknown. This research therefore uses prospect theory and competing theoretical foundations to derive pertinent hypotheses and test them by using a multi-level structural equation model. The analysis draws on a survey-based experiment conducted among a representative sample of the German population. Results confirm key assertions of prospect theory. The negative effect caused by unfavorable product carbon footprint information on WTP is stronger than the positive effect caused by respective favorable information. Besides this negativity bias, consumers tend to generally reward or punish deviations of a product's environmental performance from industry average instead of consistently accounting for the size of these deviations. From a sustainable development perspective, the observed patterns highlight a problematic contrast between the need for substantial environmental improvements and limited market incentives for companies. Consequently, political intervention is needed to introduce negative labeling, raise consumers’ reference points, set minimum industry standards, and subsidize companies for radical improvements.

中文翻译：

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越坏越好没关系？：有利和不利的环境信息对消费者支付意愿的影响

提高消费者对环保产品的支付意愿（WTP）是市场经济可持续发展的关键挑战。尽管如此，消费者如何对不同数量范围内的有利和不利环境信息做出反应在很大程度上是未知的。因此，本研究使用前景理论和相互竞争的理论基础来推导出相关的假设，并通过使用多层次结构方程模型对其进行检验。该分析借鉴了在德国人口的代表性样本中进行的基于调查的实验。结果证实了前景理论的关键断言。不利的产品碳足迹信息对支付意愿的负面影响强于各自有利信息的积极影响。除了这种消极偏见，消费者通常倾向于奖励或惩罚产品环境绩效与行业平均水平的偏差，而不是始终如一地考虑这些偏差的大小。从可持续发展的角度来看，观察到的模式突出了对环境进行实质性改善的需求与公司有限的市场激励之间存在问题的对比。因此，需要政治干预来引入负面标签、提高消费者的参考点、设定最低行业标准并补贴公司进行根本性的改进。观察到的模式突显了需要大幅改善环境与对公司的有限市场激励之间存在问题的对比。因此，需要政治干预来引入负面标签、提高消费者的参考点、制定最低行业标准并补贴公司进行根本性的改进。观察到的模式突显了需要大幅改善环境与对公司的有限市场激励之间存在问题的对比。因此，需要政治干预来引入负面标签、提高消费者的参考点、设定最低行业标准并补贴公司进行根本性的改进。