Pro-environmental attitudes, local environmental conditions and recycling behavior

The paper uses Italian official survey data collected in 2012 from more than 20 thousand households to shed light on the determinants of people’s pro-environmental behavior, specifically differentiation domestic waste disposal. A rich interdisciplinary literature has developed explain why people may make eco-friendly choices, which come at a personal cost and provide benefits accruing largely other people. contributes this investigation by jointly considering non-economic (a declared general interest environmental issues), economic (easy access recycling bins) contextual (the perceived condition local environment) recycling. results show that higher issues is associated with an increase 7.5 percentage points, while easy facilities 5.3 points. More educated are also inclined behave pro-environmentally: university degree or Ph.D. probability 5.2 Finally, provides evidence locally perceiving degradation 5.8 points decrease likelihood This last result be explained bounded rationality and/or conditional social cooperation, both lead poverty trap. final message gathered difficult reconcile “homo oeconomicus” hypothesis still prevailing standard theory have properly considered formulation effective policies.