Redesigning Cockpits: Introduction to Special Issue of Journal of Consumer Policy on Behavioural Economics, Environmental Policy and the Consumer

This essay is an introduction to a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Consumer Policy, on Behavioural Economics, Environmental Policy and the Consumer. It emphasizes that consumer behavior can be greatly affected by the context, which may make it easy or difficult for people to make choices that benefit or harm the environment, and which may make environmentally relevant features of products more or less salient. Open questions, both ethical and empirical, are identified. The essays in the symposium, summarized here, offer both positive and more critical accounts of behaviourally informed regulation and its tools, as well as a wide range of hands-on applications of behavioural findings to environmentally relevant consumer behaviour.