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Behavioural economics

A caring majority secures the future

Nature volume 511, pages 165–166 (2014)Cite this article

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An experiment studying people's willingness to sacrifice personal gains so that resources are passed to future generations shows that this occurs only when extractions by free-riders are curbed by majority rule. See Letter p.220

What kind of world will we pass on to those who follow us? Most of us would like to leave a liveable, green planet, but are 'most of us' enough to turn current environmental trends around, and are we willing to sacrifice enough to make a real difference? In this issue, Hauser et al.1 (page 220) present the results of a decision-making experiment, involving participants hired through an online job marketplace, that helps us to think more clearly about these questions. The authors found impressive evidence of majority willingness to sacrifice personal gains for future generations, but they show that whether such majorities are adequate for the task depends on whether choices are made individually or by group decision.

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Figure 1: Leaving enough for those to come.

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  1. Louis Putterman is in the Department of Economics, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA.,

    Louis Putterman

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  1. Louis Putterman
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Correspondence to Louis Putterman.

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Putterman, L. A caring majority secures the future. Nature 511, 165–166 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13510

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