Promoting willingness to pay for environmental charges in electricity tariff: Evidence from a randomized survey experiment

Despite a strong economic rationale, internalizing environmental externalities often encounters public resistance, impeding effective policy implementation. We conduct a randomized survey experiment with 4214 Korean electricity consumers to examine the causal effects of four information treatments on willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental charges in electricity tariffs: (i) emphasizing the substantial under-internalization of external costs; (ii) signaling bipartisan consensus on climate policy; (iii) showcasing successful international cooperation; and (iv) providing a cross-country comparison of climate efforts. Among the four treatments, only treatment (i) significantly increased WTP by 15%, with consistent positive effects across political subgroups. The other treatments exhibited a shared pattern of politically divergent responses — decreasing WTP among conservatives, increasing it among moderates, and having insignificant effect among liberals — leading to null average effects. Notably, this divergence emerged exclusively among those with inaccurate prior knowledge of existing charges. Our results demonstrate that effective communication for corrective pricing critically depends on transcending political divisions, with fairness-based frames highlighting cost responsibility showing the most promise.