Green Consumption under Misperceived Prices: An Application to Active Transportation

We propose a consumption model that captures the impact that perceived price ambiguities may have upon decision-making in green markets in general and in active transportation markets in particular. The basic intuition for the model is that a consumer who may be misperceiving the price of the green good (the active transportation mode) would be willing to pay a positive amount from her income in the current period to resolve the misperception going forward. We posit that the basis for the price misperception in the active transportation context is misperception of the relative risks involved in taking that mode. The compensating variation that aligns perceived and objective risk is derived. We show how raising green consumption via price misperception correction can be superior to traditional economic policy instruments. The results shed light on the more general family of situations in which agents may consistently misperceive aspects of the decision environment.