@article{836,
  keywords = {consumption, fertility, socially embedded preferences},
  author = {Scott Barrett and Aisha Dasgupta and Partha Dasgupta and Neil Adger and John Anderies and Jeroen van den Bergh and Caroline Bledsoe and John Bongaarts and Stephen Carpenter and Stuart Chapin and Anne-Sophie Cr{\'e}pin and Gretchen Daily and Paul Ehrlich and Carl Folke and Nils Kautsky and Eric Lambin and Simon Levin and Karl-G{\"o}ran M{\"a}ler and Rosamond Naylor and Karine Nyborg and Stephen Polasky and Marten Scheffer and Jason Shogren and Peter J{\o}rgensen and Brian Walker and James Wilen},
  title = {Social dimensions of fertility behavior and consumption patterns in the Anthropocene.},
  abstract = {<p>We consider two aspects of the human enterprise that profoundly affect the global environment: population and consumption. We show that fertility and consumption behavior harbor a class of externalities that have not been much noted in the literature. Both are driven in part by attitudes and preferences that are not egoistic but socially embedded; that is, each household{\textquoteright}s decisions are influenced by the decisions made by others. In a famous paper, Garrett Hardin [G. Hardin, 162, 1243-1248 (1968)] drew attention to overpopulation and concluded that the solution lay in people "abandoning the freedom to breed." That human attitudes and practices are socially embedded suggests that it is possible for people to reduce their fertility rates and consumption demands without experiencing a loss in wellbeing. We focus on fertility in sub-Saharan Africa and consumption in the rich world and argue that bottom-up social mechanisms rather than top-down government interventions are better placed to bring about those ecologically desirable changes.</p>},
  year = {2020},
  journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
  volume = {117},
  pages = {6300-6307},
  month = {03/2020},
  issn = {1091-6490},
  doi = {10.1073/pnas.1909857117},
  language = {eng},
}