Seminar Celebrity endorsement in promoting pro-environmental behavior

Seminar: Celebrity endorsement in promoting pro-environmental behavior

Time: 11:00 – 12:00
Wednesday 09 September 2020

Venue: UEH Campus H, 1A Hoang Dieu street
Phu Nhuan district, Ho Chi Minh city

Presenter: Ho Quoc Thong, UEH School of Economics and EfD-Vietnam research fellow

Abstract: We conduct a natural field experiment on the effect of celebrity endorsement of an information campaign aiming to induce pro-environmental behavior in the context of single-use plastics consumption in Vietnam. We find that an information campaign does not have a significant effect on behavior unless it is coupled with a celebrity endorsement. The effect of celebrity endorsement is sizeable. Subjects in the treatment with celerity endorsement pick around 25 percent fewer plastic items in the shop at the end of the experiment compared with subjects in the control group. The effects in treatments where a pledge is added are even larger, but we do not find a statistically significant effect of pledges themselves.

Key-words: pro-environmental behavior, celebrity endorsement, information
JEL-codes: C93, D9, Q5