Macro-systems role of marketing: Do we trade environment for welfare?

The purpose of this research is to advance understanding of the macro-systems role of marketing. The author augments the equivocal principle of marketing (EPM) with the hypothesis that marketing has a negative indirect impact on societal welfare. The estimation of a structural error correction model in the context of the U.S. marketing system confirms that there exists a negative long-run relationship between environmental entropy and sustainable welfare with marketing positively associated with environmental entropy. This fact invalidates the assumptions behind the trade-off conjecture, which could only be supported if one is willing to accept the economic welfare myth. © SAGE Publications 2011.