Antisocial Responses to the Coal to Gas Regulation: An Unintended Consequence of a Residential Energy Policy

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Cao, Jing; Liu, Tracy Xiao; Ma, Rong; Sun, Ang
• 署名单位: Tsinghua University; China Agricultural University; Renmin University of China; Renmin University of China
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2023.01459
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: prosociality; environmental policy; quasi-natural experiment

摘要

Policies geared toward environmental and economic improvement could unexpectedly lead to negative consequences in other dimensions. Such cases raise a red flag to economists and policymakers who aim to deliver comprehensive and sensible policy evaluations. This article investigates antisocial behaviors in response to the Clean Winter Heating Policy (CWHP), which seeks to improve outdoor air quality. Our results show that participating villagers are more likely to violate laws to burn agricultural waste and exhibit lower prosociality in incentivized dictator games and public goods games. We further explore treatment heterogeneities and find that two channels are likely to play a part. First, the CWHP was perceived as a negative income shock. Therefore, the villagers would want to reduce their expenditure on straw disposal and behave less generously in the incentivized games. Second, the CWHP could trigger discontent and directly affect social preference. Additional evidence suggests that the antisocial (less prosocial) responses could have been avoided by granting larger upfront subsidies.