The Origins and Limits of Red and Green Consumerism in Europe

This paper explores socially-responsible consumerism in Europe, the willingness of consumers to make purchasing choices and pay more for products made in ways that respect labor and environmental standards. Such willingness is a potentially important basis for non-state governance of global regulatory standards through green and labor-friendly labeling, marketing, and private codes of conduct.  We are interested in the individual and national policy conditions that underlie such consumer attitudes across and within European nations.  We are also interested in particular in the degree to which consumer willingness to pay premia for green and labor-friendly production might reflect calculations or frustration involving national public laws promoting labor and environmental standards directly, such as through regulatory trade policies.  To explore these possibilities, the paper analyzes public opinion in 24 European Union countries, based on a 2010 Eurobarometer survey that asks a panel of questions about trade policy, and about private-consumer priorities in the protection of labor standards and the environment.  The analysis reveals that wealthier and more educated voters are clearly more willing to pay more for both labor and environmental protections, and that progressive voters are more willing to pay more for labor protections but not environmental protections.  More interestingly, the paper also finds that settings with more established hard-law labor-market protections in trade and labor regulations tend to diminish rather than strengthen "green" or "red" consumerism.  This provides tentative evidence that hard and soft regulations are, at least in the eyes of most European voters, imperfect substitutes for the protection of both labor and environmental standards.