IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/glenvp/v20y2020i2p128-156.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political Economy Determinants of Carbon Pricing

Author

Listed:
  • Sebastian Levi
  • Christian Flachsland
  • Michael Jakob

Abstract

Carbon pricing is widely considered a key policy instrument for achieving substantial climate change mitigation. However, implementation remains patchy and price levels vary significantly across countries and regions. In this article, we analyze the structural social, political, and economic conditions under which carbon prices have been implemented so far. We estimate a Tobit regression model to investigate variations in explicit carbon prices over 262 national and subnational jurisdictions. Our results highlight well-governed institutions and public attitudes as the most important conditions for carbon pricing and characterize fossil fuel consumption as a barrier to the implementation of carbon prices. The results suggest that governance and public attitude need to be integrated into political economy analysis. Policy makers should take regulatory capacities and public attitudes seriously when designing carbon pricing policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Sebastian Levi & Christian Flachsland & Michael Jakob, 2020. "Political Economy Determinants of Carbon Pricing," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(2), pages 128-156, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:20:y:2020:i:2:p:128-156
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/glep_a_00549
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Douenne & Adrien Fabre, 2019. "Can We Reconcile French People with the Carbon Tax? Disentangling Beliefs from Preferences," Working Papers 2019.10, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    2. Blasch, Julia & Filippini, Massimo & Kumar, Nilkanth, 2019. "Boundedly rational consumers, energy and investment literacy, and the display of information on household appliances," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 39-58.
    3. Jenkins, Jesse D., 2014. "Political economy constraints on carbon pricing policies: What are the implications for economic efficiency, environmental efficacy, and climate policy design?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 467-477.
    4. Bollen, Johannes & van der Zwaan, Bob & Brink, Corjan & Eerens, Hans, 2009. "Local air pollution and global climate change: A combined cost-benefit analysis," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 161-181, August.
    5. Teng, Fei & Wang, Xin & Zhiqiang, LV, 2014. "Introducing the emissions trading system to China’s electricity sector: Challenges and opportunities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 39-45.
    6. Fredrik Carlsson & Mitesh Kataria & Alan Krupnick & Elina Lampi & Åsa Löfgren & Ping Qin & Susie Chun & Thomas Sterner, 2012. "Paying for Mitigation: A Multiple Country Study," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 88(2), pages 326-340.
    7. Fankhauser, Sam & Gennaioli, Caterina & Collins, Murray, 2015. "The political economy of passing climate change legislation: evidence from a survey," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 63352, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Ryan Rafaty, 2018. "Perceptions of Corruption, Political Distrust, and the Weakening of Climate Policy," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 18(3), pages 106-129, August.
    9. Wood, Peter John & Jotzo, Frank, 2011. "Price floors for emissions trading," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1746-1753, March.
    10. David McCollum & Volker Krey & Keywan Riahi & Peter Kolp & Arnulf Grubler & Marek Makowski & Nebojsa Nakicenovic, 2013. "Climate policies can help resolve energy security and air pollution challenges," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 119(2), pages 479-494, July.
    11. Stefano Carattini & Andrea Baranzini & Philippe Thalmann & Frédéric Varone & Frank Vöhringer, 2017. "Green Taxes in a Post-Paris World: Are Millions of Nays Inevitable?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(1), pages 97-128, September.
    12. David Klenert & Linus Mattauch & Emmanuel Combet & Ottmar Edenhofer & Cameron Hepburn & Ryan Rafaty & Nicholas Stern, 2018. "Making carbon pricing work for citizens," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(8), pages 669-677, August.
    13. Antony Millner & Hélène Ollivier, 2016. "Beliefs, Politics, and Environmental Policy," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(2), pages 226-244.
    14. Rhodes, Ekaterina & Axsen, Jonn & Jaccard, Mark, 2017. "Exploring Citizen Support for Different Types of Climate Policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 56-69.
    15. Jonas Meckling, 2011. "The Globalization of Carbon Trading: Transnational Business Coalitions in Climate Politics," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 11(2), pages 26-50, May.
    16. Elinor Ostrom, 2014. "A Polycentric Approach For Coping With Climate Change," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 15(1), pages 97-134, May.
    17. Stefano Carattini & Steffen Kallbekken & Anton Orlov, 2019. "How to win public support for a global carbon tax," Nature, Nature, vol. 565(7739), pages 289-291, January.
    18. Geoffroy Dolphin & Michael G Pollitt & David M Newbery, 2020. "The political economy of carbon pricing: a panel analysis," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(2), pages 472-500.
    19. Sverker C. Jagers & Johan Martinsson & Simon Matti, 2019. "The impact of compensatory measures on public support for carbon taxation: an experimental study in Sweden," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 147-160, February.
    20. Jonas Meckling & Thomas Sterner & Gernot Wagner, 2017. "Policy sequencing toward decarbonization," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 2(12), pages 918-922, December.
    21. Erick Lachapelle & Christopher P. Borick & Barry Rabe, 2012. "Public Attitudes toward Climate Science and Climate Policy in Federal Systems: Canada and the United States Compared," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 29(3), pages 334-357, May.
    22. Jaffe, Adam B. & Newell, Richard G. & Stavins, Robert N., 2005. "A tale of two market failures: Technology and environmental policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2-3), pages 164-174, August.
    23. Sverker C. Jagers & Åsa Löfgren & Johannes Stripple, 2010. "Attitudes to personal carbon allowances: political trust, fairness and ideology," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 410-431, July.
    24. Stefan Drews & Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2016. "What explains public support for climate policies? A review of empirical and experimental studies," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(7), pages 855-876, October.
    25. Matthew J. Hornsey & Emily A. Harris & Paul G. Bain & Kelly S. Fielding, 2016. "Meta-analyses of the determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(6), pages 622-626, June.
    26. Kalkuhl, Matthias & Steckel, Jan Christoph & Edenhofer, Ottmar, 2020. "All or nothing: Climate policy when assets can become stranded," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    27. Stefan Brönnimann & Christof Appenzeller & Mischa Croci‐Maspoli & Jürg Fuhrer & Martin Grosjean & Roland Hohmann & Karin Ingold & Reto Knutti & Mark A. Liniger & Christoph C. Raible & Regine Röthlisbe, 2014. "Climate change in Switzerland: a review of physical, institutional, and political aspects," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(4), pages 461-481, July.
    28. Murray, Brian & Rivers, Nicholas, 2015. "British Columbia’s revenue-neutral carbon tax: A review of the latest “grand experiment” in environmental policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 674-683.
    29. Stefano Carattini & Maria Carvalho & Sam Fankhauser, 2018. "Overcoming public resistance to carbon taxes," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(5), September.
    30. Michael Pahle & Dallas Burtraw & Christian Flachsland & Nina Kelsey & Eric Biber & Jonas Meckling & Ottmar Edenhofer & John Zysman, 2018. "Sequencing to ratchet up climate policy stringency," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(10), pages 861-867, October.
    31. Marcel J. Dorsch & Christian Flachsland, 2017. "A Polycentric Approach to Global Climate Governance," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 17(2), pages 45-64, May.
    32. Sivan Kartha & Tom Athanasiou & Simon Caney & Elizabeth Cripps & Kate Dooley & Navroz K. Dubash & Teng Fei & Paul G. Harris & Ceecee Holz & Bård Lahn & Darrel Moellendorf & Benito Müller & J. Timmons , 2018. "Cascading biases against poorer countries," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(5), pages 348-349, May.
    33. Alex Y. Lo, 2016. "Challenges to the development of carbon markets in China," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1), pages 109-124, January.
    34. -, 2009. "The economics of climate change," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38679, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moritz A. Drupp & Frikk Nesje & Robert C. Schmidt, 2022. "Pricing Carbon," CESifo Working Paper Series 9608, CESifo.
    2. Turner, Karen & Alabi, Oluwafisayo & Katris, Antonios & Swales, Kim, 2022. "The importance of labour market responses, competitiveness impacts, and revenue recycling in determining the political economy costs of broad carbon taxation in the UK," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    3. Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline & Mouez Fodha, 2023. "Debt, tax and environmental policy [Dette, taxe et politique environnementale]," Post-Print halshs-04181981, HAL.
    4. Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline, 2022. "Rendre acceptable la nécessaire taxation du carbone. Quelles pistes pour la France ?," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 15-53.
    5. Ottmar Edenhofer & Max Franks & Matthias Kalkuhl, 2021. "Pigou in the 21st Century: a tribute on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Economics of Welfare," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(5), pages 1090-1121, October.
    6. Levi, Sebastian & Goldberg, Matthew H., 2021. "Democracy influences climate change concern," SocArXiv 6vk9d, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Douenne, Thomas & Fabre, Adrien, 2020. "French attitudes on climate change, carbon taxation and other climate policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    2. Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline, 2022. "Rendre acceptable la nécessaire taxation du carbone. Quelles pistes pour la France ?," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 15-53.
    3. Sverker C. Jagers & Erick Lachapelle & Johan Martinsson & Simon Matti, 2021. "Bridging the ideological gap? How fairness perceptions mediate the effect of revenue recycling on public support for carbon taxes in the United States, Canada and Germany," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 38(5), pages 529-554, September.
    4. Ewald, Jens & Sterner, Thomas & Sterner, Erik, 2022. "Understanding the resistance to carbon taxes: Drivers and barriers among the general public and fuel-tax protesters," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    5. Sommer, Stephan & Mattauch, Linus & Pahle, Michael, 2022. "Supporting carbon taxes: The role of fairness," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    6. Weiner, Csaba & Muth, Dániel & Lakócai, Csaba, 2023. "A szén-dioxid-kibocsátást terhelő adó társadalmi elfogadottsága és a fizetési hajlandóság alakulása Magyarországon [Public acceptance of and willingness to pay for a tax on carbon-dioxide emissions," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 1077-1107.
    7. Daniele Malerba, 2022. "The Effects of Social Protection and Social Cohesion on the Acceptability of Climate Change Mitigation Policies: What Do We (Not) Know in the Context of Low- and Middle-Income Countries?," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(3), pages 1358-1382, June.
    8. Andrew G. Meyer, 2022. "Do economic conditions affect climate change beliefs and support for climate action? Evidence from the US in the wake of the Great Recession," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 64-86, January.
    9. Raymond, Leigh, 2019. "Policy perspective:Building political support for carbon pricing—Lessons from cap-and-trade policies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    10. Hammerle, Mara & Best, Rohan & Crosby, Paul, 2021. "Public acceptance of carbon taxes in Australia," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    11. Sara Maestre-Andrés & Stefan Drews & Ivan Savin & Jeroen Bergh, 2021. "Carbon tax acceptability with information provision and mixed revenue uses," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.
    12. Pitkänen, Atte & von Wright, Tuuli & Kaseva, Janne & Kahiluoto, Helena, 2022. "Distributional fairness of personal carbon trading," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    13. Fanghella, Valeria & Faure, Corinne & Guetlein, Marie-Charlotte & Schleich, Joachim, 2023. "What's in it for me? Self-interest and preferences for distribution of costs and benefits of energy efficiency policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    14. Edenhofer, Ottmar & Flachsland, Christian & Kalkuhl, Matthias & Knopf, Brigitte & Pahle, Michael, 2019. "Optionen für eine CO2-Preisreform," Working Papers 04/2019, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.
    15. Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline & Mouez Fodha, 2023. "Debt, tax and environmental policy [Dette, taxe et politique environnementale]," Post-Print halshs-04181981, HAL.
    16. Stephan Sommer & Théo Konc & Stefan Drews, 2023. "How resilient is public support for carbon pricing? Longitudinal evidence from Germany," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0021, Berlin School of Economics.
    17. Ziegler, Andreas, 2019. "The Relevance of Attitudinal Factors for the Acceptance of Energy Policy Measures: A Micro-econometric Analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 129-140.
    18. Rhodes, Ekaterina & Scott, William A. & Jaccard, Mark, 2021. "Designing flexible regulations to mitigate climate change: A cross-country comparative policy analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    19. Mattauch, Linus & Hepburn, Cameron & Stern, Nicholas, 2018. "Pigou pushes preferences: decarbonisation and endogenous values," INET Oxford Working Papers 2018-16, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    20. Stefano Carattini & Andrea Baranzini & Philippe Thalmann & Frédéric Varone & Frank Vöhringer, 2017. "Green Taxes in a Post-Paris World: Are Millions of Nays Inevitable?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(1), pages 97-128, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:20:y:2020:i:2:p:128-156. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.