IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/iuiwop/1464.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wind Power Approval, Decentralization, and NIMBYism: Evidence from the Swedish Greens

Author

Listed:
  • Lundin, Erik

    (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN))

Abstract

Green parties are commonly seen as strong proponents of wind power. This paper presents an alternative view, examining data from the highly decentralized institutional setup in Sweden where approval of wind power applications is delegated to local governments. I demonstrate that the approval rate of land based wind power drops by 11 percentage points (from 49 % to 38 %) in municipalities where the Greens are in the ruling coalition, conditional on the share of Green seats in the local council. The association is identified using a twoway fixed-effects logit model with panel data on electoral outcomes from six election terms (2000-2020) in 290 municipalities, combined with detailed data on every application for wind power in Sweden. No statistically significant effect is found for any other of the main parties. A likely mechanism is that even if the Greens have relatively stronger preferences for climate policy than other parties, they are also relatively more concerned about local environmental disamenities caused by wind power. Since decision making is decentralized, local environmental concerns dominate preferences for climate policy, which should be especially pertinent in small municipalities. In line with this argument, I also show that the effect is inversely correlated with municipality population size.

Suggested Citation

  • Lundin, Erik, 2023. "Wind Power Approval, Decentralization, and NIMBYism: Evidence from the Swedish Greens," Working Paper Series 1464, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1464
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifn.se/wfiles/wp/wp1464.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ek, Kristina & Persson, Lars & Johansson, Maria & Waldo, Åsa, 2013. "Location of Swedish wind power—Random or not? A quantitative analysis of differences in installed wind power capacity across Swedish municipalities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 135-141.
    2. Germeshausen, Robert & Heim, Sven & Wagner, Ulrich J., 2021. "Support for renewable energy: The case of wind power," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-074, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Lundin, Erik, 2022. "Geographic price granularity and investments in wind power: Evidence from a Swedish electricity market splitting reform," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    4. Hans Westlund & Mats Wilhelmsson, 2021. "The Socio-Economic Cost of Wind Turbines: A Swedish Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-16, June.
    5. George Parsons & Martin D. Heintzelman, 2022. "The Effect of Wind Power Projects on Property Values: A Decade (2011–2021) of Hedonic Price Analysis," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 16(1), pages 93-170, June.
    6. Sjöberg, Eric, 2016. "An empirical study of federal law versus local environmental enforcement," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 14-31.
    7. Zerrahn, Alexander, 2017. "Wind Power and Externalities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 245-260.
    8. John Gardner, 2022. "Two-stage differences in differences," Papers 2207.05943, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Lundin, Erik, 2024. "Wind power and the cost of local compensation schemes: A Swedish revenue sharing policy simulation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    2. Marvin Schütt, 2024. "Wind Turbines and Property Values: A Meta-Regression Analysis," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 87(1), pages 1-43, January.
    3. Isaksson, Zeth & Gren, Simon, 2024. "Political expectations and electoral responses to wind farm development in Sweden," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    4. Dugstad, Anders & Grimsrud, Kristine & Kipperberg, Gorm & Lindhjem, Henrik & Navrud, Ståle, 2020. "Acceptance of wind power development and exposure – Not-in-anybody's-backyard," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    5. Hübner, Gundula & Leschinger, Valentin & Müller, Florian J.Y. & Pohl, Johannes, 2023. "Broadening the social acceptance of wind energy – An Integrated Acceptance Model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    6. Jingyi Tian & Jun Nagayasu, 2023. "Financial Systemic Risk behind Artificial Intelligence:Evidence from China," TUPD Discussion Papers 44, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University.
    7. Poignant, Adrian, 2023. "Small-scale mining and agriculture: Evidence from northwestern Tanzania," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    8. Aggarwal, Khushboo & Barua, Rashmi & Vidal-Fernandez, Marian, 2024. "Still Waters Run Deep: Groundwater Contamination and Education Outcomes in India," IZA Discussion Papers 16863, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. David R. Agrawal & Iuliia Shybalkina, 2024. "Remittance Rules and the Distribution of Local Tax Revenue: Evidence after Wayfair," CESifo Working Paper Series 11252, CESifo.
    10. Hufschmidt, Patrick & Ume, Chukwuma Otum, 2023. "Conflicts and political intervention: Evidence from the anti-open grazing laws in Nigeria," Ruhr Economic Papers 1009, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    11. Lundin, Erik, 2022. "Geographic price granularity and investments in wind power: Evidence from a Swedish electricity market splitting reform," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    12. Markowska Agnieszka, 2021. "State of Democracy in Poland versus Environmental Protection," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 8(55), pages 219-230, January.
    13. Lehmann, Paul & Tafarte, Philip, 2023. "The opportunity costs of environmental exclusion zones for renewable energy deployment," UFZ Discussion Papers 2/2023, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    14. Ramos, Carmen & García, Ana Salomé & Moreno, Blanca & Díaz, Guzmán, 2019. "Small-scale renewable power technologies are an alternative to reach a sustainable economic growth: Evidence from Spain," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 13-25.
    15. Pollitt, M. G., 2023. "Locational Marginal Prices (LMPs) for Electricity in Europe? The Untold Story," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2352, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    16. John Dorrell & Keunjae Lee, 2020. "The Cost of Wind: Negative Economic Effects of Global Wind Energy Development," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-25, July.
    17. Joalland, Olivier & Mahieu, Pierre-Alexandre, 2023. "Developing large-scale offshore wind power programs: A choice experiment analysis in France," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    18. Acton, Riley & Khafaji-King, Jo Al & Smith, Austin C., 2023. "Suspended from Work and School? Impacts of Layoff Events and Unemployment Insurance on Student Disciplinary Incidence," IZA Discussion Papers 16423, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Enevoldsen, Peter, 2016. "Onshore wind energy in Northern European forests: Reviewing the risks," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1251-1262.
    20. Lehmann, Paul & Tafarte, Philip, 2024. "Exclusion zones for renewable energy deployment: One man’s blessing, another man’s curse," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wind power; Decentralization; Negative externalities; Electricity market; Energy transition; Climate policy; Elections; Nimbyism; Green Party;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects
    • P18 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Energy; Environment
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:iuiwop:1464. 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: Elisabeth Gustafsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iuiiise.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.