This paper shows how sustainable consumption patterns can spread within a population via processes of social learning even though a strong individual learning bias may favor environmentally harmful products. We present a model depicting how the biased transmission of different behaviors via...

This paper builds a consumer search model where the cost of going back to stores already searched is explicitly taken into account. We show that the optimal search rule under costly recall is very different from the optimal search rule under perfect recall. Under costly recall, the optimal...

Behavioral (e.g. consumption) patterns of boundedly rational agents can lead these agents into learning dynamics that appear to be wasteful in terms of well-being or welfare. Within settings displaying preference endogeneity, it is however still unclear how to conceptualize well-being. This...

Research background: The article has address the issue of sustainable consumption which is becoming increasingly important on account of the adverse social and environmental consequences caused by the development and growth of societies. Sustainable consumption encourages to make rational...

We propose a formal description of individual preferences that captures a subsistence requirement in consumption in an otherwise standard constant-elasticity-ofsubstitution (CES) utility specification. We study how substitutability between the subsistence good and another good depends on the...

That institutions matter is widely accepted among economists and so are social norms as an important category of informal institutions. Social norms matter in many economic situations, but in particular for markets. The economic literature has studied the interrelation between markets and social...

Strong growth in disposable income has inflated consumption to unprecedented, but not sustainable levels. In this process consumer behavior has been changing. To explain the driving forces of this development, the paper introduces a theory of evolving consumer preferences that is molded in an...

Changes in consumer behaviour are shaping food industry strategies, and a broad analysis of the specialised literature is needed to provide a holistic view of trends in consumer behaviour trends. This article aims to identify the research directions in the field and the trends that could shape...

Economic growth has become a prominent political goal worldwide, despite its severe conflicts with ecological sustainability. Are "growth policies" only a question of political or individual will, or do "growth imperatives" exist that make them "inescapable"? We structure the debate along two...

This work illustrates the preliminary findings of a participatory research process aimed at identifying responses for sustainable water management in a climate change perspective, in two river basins in Europe and Asia. The paper describes the methodology implemented through local workshops,...