Proactive social learning and green product consumption: Evidence from new energy vehicle sales in China

Abstract

Growing literature on social norms points to the effectiveness of leveraging social interactions to spur prosocial purchase behaviors. This article studies the effects of proactive social learning, a dynamic social norm formation process measured by the public's online normative information acquisition regarding climate change, on new energy vehicle (NEV) sales in China. Drawing on model–month sales data, we provide robust evidence that citizens' broad searches for information about climate change or global warming boost local NEV sales. By distinguishing between search topics, we find that impact-based learning has a greater influence on NEV sales than reason-based learning. City-level analysis further reveals that local social norms formed through economic openness, public literacy, and strategic government interventions enhance proactive social learning-driven NEV sales. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding proactive social learning embedded in localized social norms in promoting prosocial consumer decisions.