Individual-level solutions, such as lifestyle changes, are often regarded as cost-effective complements to systemic policies like government regulations in addressing climate change. However, some argue that exposure to these solutions may shift focus away from systemic interventions, potentially crowding-out support for large-scale policies. Across two experiments in Iran (N = 303) and Australia (N = 308 and 625), we tested whether exposure to different numbers of individual and systemic policies would affect individuals’ perception of systemic climate solutions. Results showed that, regardless of country or exposure type, whether through daily life or experimental manipulation, participants consistently supported systemic policies and changes, attributed greater responsibility to the government, perceived minimal conflict between systemic and individual approaches, rated systemic policies as more effective than individual ones, and viewed individual actions as only moderately substitutable for systemic solutions. These findings challenge the crowding-out hypothesis, suggesting that exposure to individual solutions does not diminish support for systemic policies or structural reforms.

Explicit and implicit incentives and opportunities for mutually beneficial voluntary cooperation coexist in many economic relationships. In a series of eight laboratory gift-exchange experiments, we show that incentives can lead to crowding out of voluntary cooperation even after they have been abolished. This crowding-out also occurs in repeated relationships, which otherwise strongly increase effort compared to one-shot interactions. Using a unified econometric framework, we unpack these results as a function of positive and negative reciprocity, as well as the principals’ wage offer and the incentive compatibility of the contract. Crowding-out occurs mostly due to reduced wages and not a change in reciprocal wage–effort relationships. Our systematic analysis also replicates established results on gift exchange, incentives, and crowding out of voluntary cooperation while being exposed to incentives. Overall, our findings show that the behavioral consequences of explicit incentives strongly depend on the features of the situation in which they are embedded.

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have become an important component of social assistance in developing countries. CCTs, as well as other cash subsidies, have been criticized for allegedly crowding out private transfers. Whether social programs crowd out private transfers is an important question with worrisome implications, as private support represents an important fraction of households’ income and works as a risk sharing mechanism in developing countries. Furthermore, empirical evidence on the effect of public transfers on private transfers is mixed. This paper contributes to the literature by using a unique dataset from the quasi-experimental evaluation of a CCT in Colombia and an empirical strategy that allows us to correct for pre-existing differences between treated and control groups. Our results suggest that the public transfer did not crowd out private transfers, neither in the short-run nor in the middle-run. Instead, it increased the probability of receiving support in cash, in kind, and in non-paid labor from different private sources by approximately 10 percentage points. Moreover, we find that the monetary value of private transfers increased by 32-38% for treated households.