Patience as a Determinant of Environmental Attitudes in Europe

In order to have a chance at reducing the harmful effect that humanity has on our planet we much do more than just wait for powerful countries to pass economic sanctions that are not always meet. Individual behavior must also aim to meet the necessary standards in order to avoid an environmental catastrophe. This paper aims to show the relationship between an individual’s value of patience (long-term orientation) and the degree to which they exhibit pro-environmental attitudes. It seeks to build upon the existing literature done on time preferences and environmental attitudes. The research is centered in Europe in order to take a closer look at patience as a cultural variable. My hypothesis is that country-wide patience has a strong impact on an individual’s attitudes towards protecting the environment. I present two different measures for time preferences, one country-level variable, and an individual level one, in order to observe how each behaves in relation to environmental attitudes. Three different OLS and logistics models are employed to test for the robustness of the results against country-level economic development controls, demographic controls, and lifestyle controls. Additionally, the European countries are divided into four regions to look at patience as a cultural variable. The paper concludes that there is a positive and significant correlation between patience and environmental attitudes.