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IZA Discussion Paper No. 18809
July 2026
Intergenerational Spillovers of Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors
Shubhro Bhattacharya, Sara Constantino, Nirajana Mishra, Nishith Prakash, Shwetlena Sabarwal, Dighbijoy Samaddar, Raisa Sherif

We study intergenerational spillovers of environmental education using a randomized field experiment with 1,446 child–parent pairs in Patna, India, assigned to child-only, parent-only, joint, or control arms. Treating either children or parents raises the likelihood that the untreated household member chooses a delayed recycled certificate over an immediate standard one by 25 percentage points—spillovers on this incentivized behavior run symmetrically in both directions. Spillovers on beliefs and attitudes are asymmetric, however: children shift parents' views on climate change, but little spillover runs from parents to children on other measures. Joint participation does not outperform targeting children alone once child-to-parent spillovers are accounted for, suggesting that targeting children is a more scalable, cost-effective way to promote sustainable household behavior.

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