Why Do Retail Investors Pick Green Investments? A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment with Crowdfunders
通过实验分离投资者选择绿色项目的动机，发现多数人愿意为足够大的环境或社会影响放弃更高回报，且历史投资数据表明环境偏好驱动实际投资。
Do investors invest in green projects because they expect higher returns, to help the environment, or to help other people? To separate these motivations, we run a decision experiment in which crowdfunders choose between a higher return or a positive environmental impact, and between a higher return or a positive social impact. A majority of investors choose environmental and social impact over higher returns, conditional on large enough impact. Combining the experimental data with historical investments, we find that investors allocate a larger share of funds to green projects if they value environmental impact more and if they expect a higher return, but not if they value social impact more, all else equal. These findings suggest that investors have a preference for positive environmental impact, and satisfy it by investing in green projects. Finally, we introduce new survey measures of impact for future use, which are experimentally validated and predict field behavior.