IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v14y2022i1p81-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Yellow Vests, Pessimistic Beliefs, and Carbon Tax Aversion

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Douenne
  • Adrien Fabre

Abstract

Using a representative survey, we find that after the Yellow Vests movement, French people would largely reject a tax and dividend policy, i.e., a carbon tax whose revenues are redistributed uniformly to each adult. They overestimate their net monetary losses, wrongly think that the policy is regressive, and do not perceive it as environmentally effective. We show that changing people's beliefs can substantially increase support. Although significant, the effects of our informational treatments on beliefs are small. Indeed, the respondents that oppose the tax tend to discard positive information about it, which is consistent with distrust, uncertainty, or motivated reasoning.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Douenne & Adrien Fabre, 2022. "Yellow Vests, Pessimistic Beliefs, and Carbon Tax Aversion," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 81-110, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:14:y:2022:i:1:p:81-110
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20200092
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20200092
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E128143V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20200092.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20200092.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pol.20200092?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Can Askan Mavi & Nicolas Quérou, 2020. "Common pool resource management and risk perceptions," DEM Discussion Paper Series 20-25, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    2. van der Ploeg, Frederick & Rezai, Armon & Tovar Reanos, Miguel, 2022. "Gathering support for green tax reform: Evidence from German household surveys," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    3. Can Askan Mavi & Nicolas Quérou, 2020. "Common pool resource management and risk perceptions," CEE-M Working Papers hal-03052114, CEE-M, Universtiy of Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro.
    4. Achim Hagen & Karen Pittel, 2021. "Chancen und Risiken klimapolitischer Langfriststrategien am Beispiel des deutschen Klimaschutzgesetzes," Wirtschaftsdienst, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 101(5), pages 334-338, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    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:aea:aejpol:v:14:y:2022:i:1:p:81-110. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.