Consumption of Values

Abstract

Consumption decisions are partly influenced by values and ideologies. Consumers care about global warming, child labor, fair trade, etc. We develop an axiomatic model of intrinsic values—those that are carriers of meaning in and of themselves—and argue that they often introduce discontinuities near zero. For example, a vegetarian’s preferences would be discontinuous near zero amount of animal meat. We distinguish intrinsic values from instrumental ones, which are means rather than ends and serve as proxies for intrinsic values. We illustrate the relevance of our value-based model in different contexts, including equity concerns and prosocial behavior. This paper was accepted by Manel Baucells, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: The authors acknowledge support from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche [Grants ANR-11-IDEX-0003 and 11-LABX-0047], the Israel Science Foundation [Grant 1443/20], the AXA Research Fund [Chair for Decision Sciences], the Foerder Institute at Tel-Aviv University, and the Sapir Center for Economic Development (Gilboa). Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.01632 .