Abstract
We investigate whether there are green returns to education, where formal education encourages pro-environmental behaviours using nationally representative surveys on environmental issues in Thailand. To establish the causal relationship between education and green behaviours, we exploit the instrumental variables strategy using the compulsory schooling reform and supply of schooling which varies through time and across regions as the instruments, while controlling for cohort and income effects. Whilst the choice and number of instruments enable us to strongly validate instrument relevance and exogeneity, we find that more years of schooling lead to a greater probability of concerning about environmental issues and taking knowledge-based environmentally-friendly actions a great deal, but not cost-saving pro-environmental actions. In addition, individuals with more schooling express lower willingness to pay for environmental tax. The findings show that regarding this issue, there is little dissimilarity between developed and developing countries. They also strongly complement the literature that is dominated by evidence from developed countries.
Highlights
This paper aims to investigate whether there are green returns to education, where formal education encourages pro-environmental behaviours after accounting for the potential endogeneity of education
Political orientation coupled with disinformation campaign and successful movement by conservative think tanks explain why concern about climate change can be negatively associated with education among American population (Hamilton, 2011; McCright and Dunlap, 2003)
Taking the endogeneity of education into account and properly controlling for the cohort effect, we find no statistically significant relationship between years of schooling and concern about global warming in Thailand
Summary
This paper aims to investigate whether there are green returns to education, where formal education encourages pro-environmental behaviours after accounting for the potential endogeneity of education. As noted by Meyer (2015), the relationships between education and pro-environmental behaviours observed can suffer endogeneity problem. Individuals who exhibit temporal discounting (individuals who prefer a smaller, more immediate reward than a later, larger one) may be less likely to invest in education and pro-environmental behaviours since both the rewards from education and climate-friendly behaviours are not always tangible and immediate. If this is the case, the observed effect of education is inconsistent and biased upwards
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