This paper reports on a novel experiment to study air passenger willingness to pay for carbon offsets. In the experiment participants make an incentivized decision to purchase one of three trips involving air travel with real cash consequences, based on real flights and prices. A control group, with opt-in carbon offsets, is compared to three treatment groups: (1) mandatory carbon offsets, (2) opt-out carbon offsets and (3) opt-out carbon offsets under saliency conditions (pre-purchase information provision). The results suggest minimal competitive effects of a carbon offset while providing support for a significant default bias effect when comparing opt-in versus opt-out schemes. Information provision increases willingness to pay for offsets, but the effect is small and insignificant.
