Time's up! How Rising Wages and Time Stress Shapes Green Preferences

Abstract

Many important pro‐environmental conservation practices do not only require money, but they also require time. This paper examines what role the shadow price of time plays in shaping green preferences across different behavioral domains. Using household production theory, we develop a simple model of “selfish” green consumer behavior that predicts how (i) rising wages and (ii) longer working hours influence how consumers trade‐off between purchasing relatively expensive green goods and engaging in time‐intensive conservation practices. The model predicts that rising wages will increase the consumer's Willingness To Pay (WTP) for green goods, but also reduce their propensity to adopt time‐intensive conservation practices. A second prediction is that self‐perceived financial stress and time stress will have asymmetric effects on inhibiting the adoption of green purchasing and conservation practices. Although time stress is predicted to have no significant influence on consumers' tendency to purchase green goods, it will inhibit the consumers' tendency to engage in time‐intensive conservation practices. The reverse is true for financial stress. Empirical evidence sourced from a French household survey supports these hypotheses and policy implications are discussed.