Environmental information, social and institutional trust, and energy-saving behavior: Evidence from Italy

This paper relies on data from an ADL-ISTAT survey and on a sample selection probit model to study the link between environmental information, social and institutional trust, and individual energy saving behavior. Results show that (i) individuals who actively keep informed about environmental issues save more energy than individuals who passively receive information; (iii) individuals’ interest in environmental issues is driven by proxies of environmental concerns and social activities in the selection equation; (iv) the inverse Mills ratio enters in the energy saving equation with a statistically negative sign, meaning that there is an overestimation of energy saving behavior if the selectivity problem of individuals’ interest in environmental issues is not accounted for.