Behavioral basis for building self-stimulating environmental regimes

Abstract

The effectiveness of self-stimulating environmental regimes in unsteady economic systems is considered in the article on the basis of the conducted behavioral experiment. It is shown that rational choice, as a methodological basis is not always a sufficient prerequisite for the development of effective environmental regimes. It is substantiated that the initial level of well-being may determine the preferences of economic entities regarding environmental benefits. It is noted that in conditions of low priority of social welfare and ecology, at the individual level there is no reason to believe that collective actions to increase the supply of environmental goods will be successful. It is revealed that the potential for replication of altruistic strategies is rather weak, and they are almost entirely offset by rent-invading behavior, while collective actions do not generate a proper emergent order in which opportunistic behavior would be subject to more stringent restrictions. In general, the results of the experiment indicate an increase in the effect of the gap between the individual rational rent-invading choices and the collective result, which leads to the degradation of the environment, which accordingly calls into question the expediency of creating a decentralized mechanism for financing the benefit of «clean ecology» in Ukraine. It is substantiated that in the short term, the very tools of environmental policy that will be based on the use of individuals to benefit from the implementation of such a policy and pushing them out will be potentially successful. However, in the long run, the improvement of the situation in the field of environmental goods may be based on changes in preferences that are not always strictly determined by the level of income, in particular, environmental policy should be associated with those changes in institutional quality and education that would be relevant to changes in preferences.