Personal values and decision making: Evidence from environmental footprint labeling in Canada

Economic analyses generally do not examine personal values of individuals, but analyses by social psychologists suggest that human values are among the most powerful predictors of consumer behavior. The approach taken to analyze the role of personal values on consumers- choices with regard to environmentally labeled ground beef employs a step-wise regression approach to the models outlined below, using likelihood-ratio tests to compare different versions of choice models. Respondents with stronger intrapersonal values exhibit environmentally less sustainable behavior compared to those who consider interpersonal values to be more important. The estimation results from multinomial and mixed logit models suggest that the higher the carbon emission and the higher the water usage associated with ground beef, the lower is the stated purchase propensity for beef. Public policy-makers and industry participants in the underdeveloped domain of product labeling with regard to environmental footprints may also be interested in the finding that consumers indicate concerns for both increased water use and carbon emissions in the assessed food product.