La sensibilité écologique des consommateurs à l’école des conventions

Abstract

According to a canonical conception of rationality, consumers’ behavior results from given preferences. In environmental economics, the ecological sensibility of consumers so takes the shape of a green preference integrated into the utility function. Economics of conventions relaxes the hypothesis of substantial rationality by emphasizing on the plurality of reasons for action for the individuals. By underlining, from empirical studies, that the behavior of the agents is inflexible in a unique causal explanation (in terms of preferences), a conventionalist conception of the ecological sensibility will lean on the values claimed by the agents and the forms of justifications when it is question of concrete actions in favour of the environment.