Code files related to "Income inequality in the uptake of environmentally friendly products" (Maglicic and Vasconcelos, 2025)

This repository contains the code used in the research article "Income Inequality in the Uptake of Environmentally Friendly Products" by Martina Maglicic and Vítor V. Vasconcelos. The code serves as a supplementary material to the paper and implements the agent-based model (ABM) developed to study the adoption of environmentally friendly products across income groups.

The model simulates consumer decision-making in the context of income inequality, incorporating both economic constraints (e.g., affordability) and social desirability (e.g., peer influence and status signaling).

Key features of the model include:

• Heterogeneous agents categorized by income quartiles to analyze disparities in adoption.
• Economic constraints, social status and peer effects as well as enviornmental concern driving the decision to adopt or not.
• Policy simulation capabilities to evaluate the impact of financial incentives and social interventions.
• Emergent collective behavior arising from individual adoption decisions.

The findings suggest that income inequality can either hinder or accelerate adoption, depending on product pricing and environmental concern in the community. The model also demonstrates that targeted financial support for lower-income groups is necessary to ensure equitable access to environmentally friendly technologies.

This code is intended for researchers, policymakers, and anyone interested in modeling the socioeconomic dynamics of sustainable technology adoption.