Labels certify that a product meets some standard for quality, but often consumers are unsure of the exact standard that the label represents. Focusing on the case of ecolabels for environmental quality, we show how even small amounts of uncertainty can create consumer confusion that reduces or...

Consumers are rarely sure of the exact standard that product labels and other certificates of quality represent. We show that any such uncertainty creates a “Groucho effect” in which seeing that a product has a label leads consumers to infer that the standard for the label itself is not very...

This article analyses belief updating when agents receive a signal that restricts the number of possible states of the world. We create an experiment on individual choice under uncertainty. In this experiment, the subject observes an urn, containing yellow and blue balls, whose composition is...

When consumers are unsure of the exact standard that a quality certificate or label represents, they must infer the difficulty of the standard in part from observing which firms adopt the label. Key results from the certification and disclosure literatures are thereby altered. First, consumers...

Individual engagement in prosocial and pro-environmental behaviors is essential for the good functioning of society. However, individuals refrain from these behaviors due to low initial intentions to engage in the behavior or, even when having high real intentions, the difficulty of translating...

We propose a simple mechanism providing incentives to reduce harmful emissions to their efficient level without infracting upon productive efficiency. The mechanism employs a contest creating incentives among participating nations to simultaneously exert efficient productive and efficient...

We propose a simple mechanism capable of achieving international agreement on the reduction of harmful emissions to their efficient level. It employs a contest creating incentives among participating nations to simultaneously exert efficient productive and efficient abatement efforts....