Economic Choice under Climate Change Pressure: Information, Coordination, and the Challenges of Inaction

The climate crisis is one of the biggest challenges of our time. We know that urgent action is needed, yet we often delay it. This PhD thesis explores how information, expectations, and group dynamics shape our decisions about climate action.
Using experiments and real-world data, the thesis studies three settings where individuals and groups face climate-related trade-offs. Chapter 2 finds that hopes for future technological breakthroughs can lead to inaction today, even when acting now would improve outcomes. Chapter 3 shows that when people can buy information about how their choices affect a shared goal, they coordinate more successfully. Chapter 4, using Dutch housing data, finds that energy labels influence prices, but less than expected—partly because buyers may already observe energy efficiency without the label.
The findings show that simply providing information is not enough. What matters is how people interpret and use it—especially in groups, where coordination is key and incentives often clash. Behavioral tendencies like delay and fairness concerns also play a role.
The common thread: information alone is not enough. What matters is how people use that information—especially in group settings, where coordination is difficult and interests may conflict. Effective climate policy must therefore go beyond informing people: it must account for human behavior and create the right conditions for collective action.