IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/88137.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Overcoming public resistance to carbon taxes

Author

Listed:
  • Carattini, Stefano
  • Carvalho, Maria
  • Fankhauser, Samuel

Abstract

Carbon taxes represent a cost-effective way to steer the economy towards a greener future. In the real world, their application has however been limited. In this paper, we address one of the main obstacles to carbon taxes: public opposition. We identify drivers of and barriers to public support, and, under the form of stylized facts, provide general lessons on the acceptability of carbon taxes. We derive our lessons from a growing literature, as well as from a combination of policy “failures” and “successes”. Based on our stylized facts, we formulate a set of suggestions concerning the design of carbon taxes. We consider the use of trial periods, tax escalators, environmental earmarking, lump-sum transfers, tax rebates, and advanced communication strategies, among others. This paper aims to contribute to the policy debate, ideally leading to more success stories, and less policy failures.

Suggested Citation

  • Carattini, Stefano & Carvalho, Maria & Fankhauser, Samuel, 2018. "Overcoming public resistance to carbon taxes," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 88137, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:88137
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/88137/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Börjesson, Maria & Eliasson, Jonas & Hugosson, Muriel & Brundell-Freij, Karin, 2012. "The Stockholm congestion charges – five years on. Effects, acceptability and lessons learnt," Working papers in Transport Economics 2012:3, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI).
    2. Andersson, David & Nässén, Jonas, 2016. "The Gothenburg congestion charge scheme: A pre–post analysis of commuting behavior and travel satisfaction," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 82-89.
    3. Martin L. Weitzman, 1974. "Prices vs. Quantities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(4), pages 477-491.
    4. Speck, Stefan, 1999. "Energy and carbon taxes and their distributional implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(11), pages 659-667, October.
    5. Antoine Dechezleprêtre & Misato Sato, 2017. "The Impacts of Environmental Regulations on Competitiveness," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 11(2), pages 183-206.
    6. Clinch, J. Peter & Dunne, Louise & Dresner, Simon, 2006. "Environmental and wider implications of political impediments to environmental tax reform," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 960-970, May.
    7. Cherry, Todd L. & Kallbekken, Steffen & Kroll, Stephan, 2017. "Accepting market failure: Cultural worldviews and the opposition to corrective environmental policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 193-204.
    8. Hsu, Shi-Ling & Walters, Joshua & Purgas, Anthony, 2008. "Pollution tax heuristics: An empirical study of willingness to pay higher gasoline taxes," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 3612-3619, September.
    9. Philippe Thalmann, 2004. "The Public Acceptance of Green Taxes: 2 Million Voters Express Their Opinion," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 119(1_2), pages 179-217, April.
    10. Baranzini, Andrea & Borzykowski, Nicolas & Carattini, Stefano, 2018. "Carbon offsets out of the woods? Acceptability of domestic vs. international reforestation programmes in the lab," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 1-12.
    11. Martin, Ralf & de Preux, Laure B. & Wagner, Ulrich J., 2014. "The impact of a carbon tax on manufacturing: Evidence from microdata," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 1-14.
    12. Frederick van der Ploeg & Cees Withagen, 2015. "Global Warming and the Green Paradox: A Review of Adverse Effects of Climate Policies," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 9(2), pages 285-303.
    13. Daniel Halbheer & Sarah Niggli & Armin Schmutzler, 2006. "What Does it Take to Sell Environmental Policy? An Empirical Analysis of Referendum Data," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 33(4), pages 441-462, April.
    14. William J. Baumol & Wallace E. Oates, 1971. "The Use of Standards and Prices for Protection of the Environment," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Peter Bohm & Allen V. Kneese (ed.), The Economics of Environment, pages 53-65, Palgrave Macmillan.
    15. Schuitema, Geertje & Steg, Linda & Forward, Sonja, 2010. "Explaining differences in acceptability before and acceptance after the implementation of a congestion charge in Stockholm," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 99-109, February.
    16. van Asselt, Harro & Brewer, Thomas, 2010. "Addressing competitiveness and leakage concerns in climate policy: An analysis of border adjustment measures in the US and the EU," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 42-51, January.
    17. Andrea Baranzini & Stefano Carattini, 2017. "Effectiveness, earmarking and labeling: testing the acceptability of carbon taxes with survey data," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 19(1), pages 197-227, January.
    18. 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.
    19. Henrik Hammar, Asa Lofgren and Thomas Sterner, 2004. "Political Economy Obstacles to Fuel Taxation," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 1-18.
    20. Carattini, Stefano & Baranzini, Andrea & Lalive, Rafael, 2018. "Is Taxing Waste a Waste of Time? Evidence from a Supreme Court Decision," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 131-151.
    21. Beuermann, Christiane & Santarius, Tilman, 2006. "Ecological tax reform in Germany: handling two hot potatoes at the same time," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 917-929, May.
    22. Bristow, Abigail L. & Wardman, Mark & Zanni, Alberto M. & Chintakayala, Phani K., 2010. "Public acceptability of personal carbon trading and carbon tax," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 1824-1837, July.
    23. Sune Lehmann & Andrew D. Jackson & Benny E. Lautrup, 2006. "Measures for measures," Nature, Nature, vol. 444(7122), pages 1003-1004, December.
    24. Weitzman, Martin L., 2017. "Voting on prices vs. voting on quantities in a World Climate Assembly," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 199-211.
    25. Andrea Baranzini & Jeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh & Stefano Carattini & Richard B. Howarth & Emilio Padilla & Jordi Roca, 2017. "Carbon pricing in climate policy: seven reasons, complementary instruments, and political economy considerations," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(4), July.
    26. Kallbekken, Steffen & Sælen, Håkon, 2011. "Public acceptance for environmental taxes: Self-interest, environmental and distributional concerns," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2966-2973, May.
    27. Winslott-Hiselius, Lena & Brundell-Freij, Karin & Vagland, Asa & Byström, Camilla, 2009. "The development of public attitudes towards the Stockholm congestion trial," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 269-282, March.
    28. Sclen, Håkon & Kallbekken, Steffen, 2011. "A choice experiment on fuel taxation and earmarking in Norway," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 2181-2190, September.
    29. Karsten Neuhoff & Andrzej Ancygier & Jean-Pierre Ponssard & Philippe Quirion & Nagore Sabio & Oliver Sartor & Misato Sato & Anne Schopp, 2015. "Modernization and Innovation in the Materials Sector: Lessons from Steel and Cement," DIW Economic Bulletin, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 5(28/29), pages 387-395.
    30. N Gregory Mankiw, 2009. "Smart Taxes: An Open Invitation to Join the Pigou Club," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 14-23.
    31. Alberini, Anna & Ščasný, Milan & Bigano, Andrea, 2018. "Policy- v. individual heterogeneity in the benefits of climate change mitigation: Evidence from a stated-preference survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 565-575.
    32. Hansla, André & Hysing, Erik & Nilsson, Andreas & Martinsson, Johan, 2017. "Explaining voting behavior in the Gothenburg congestion tax referendum," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 98-106.
    33. Klenert, David & Mattauch, Linus & Combet, Emmanuel & Edenhofer, Ottmar & Hepburn, Cameron & Rafaty, Ryan & Stern, Nicholas, 2017. "Making Carbon Pricing Work," MPRA Paper 80943, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    34. Börjesson, Maria & Eliasson, Jonas & Hugosson, Muriel B. & Brundell-Freij, Karin, 2012. "The Stockholm congestion charges—5 years on. Effects, acceptability and lessons learnt," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 1-12.
    35. David R. Heres & Steffen Kallbekken & Ibon Galarraga, 2017. "The Role of Budgetary Information in the Preference for Externality-Correcting Subsidies over Taxes: A Lab Experiment on Public Support," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 66(1), pages 1-15, January.
    36. World Bank & Ecofys & Vivid Economics & Thomas Michael Kerr, "undated". "State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2016," World Bank Publications - Reports 25160, The World Bank Group.
    37. Z. Eylem Gevrek & Ayse Uyduranoglu, 2015. "Public Preferences for Carbon Tax Attributes," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2015-15, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    38. Hammar, Henrik & Jagers, Sverker C., 2007. "What is a fair CO2 tax increase? On fair emission reductions in the transport sector," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 377-387, March.
    39. Diederich, Johannes & Goeschl, Timo, 2018. "Voluntary action for climate change mitigation does not exhibit locational preferences," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 175-180.
    40. Cherry, Todd L. & Kallbekken, Steffen & Kroll, Stephan, 2014. "The impact of trial runs on the acceptability of environmental taxes: Experimental evidence," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 84-95.
    41. Tiezzi, Silvia & Xiao, Erte, 2016. "Time delay, complexity and support for taxation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 117-141.
    42. Baranzini, Andrea & Goldemberg, Jose & Speck, Stefan, 2000. "A future for carbon taxes," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 395-412, March.
    43. Dresner, Simon & Jackson, Tim & Gilbert, Nigel, 2006. "History and social responses to environmental tax reform in the United Kingdom," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 930-939, May.
    44. 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.
    45. Lawrence Goulder, 1995. "Environmental taxation and the double dividend: A reader's guide," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 2(2), pages 157-183, August.
    46. Klok, Jacob & Larsen, Anders & Dahl, Anja & Hansen, Kirsten, 2006. "Ecological Tax Reform in Denmark: history and social acceptability," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 905-916, May.
    47. Dresner, Simon & Dunne, Louise & Clinch, Peter & Beuermann, Christiane, 2006. "Social and political responses to ecological tax reform in Europe: an introduction to the special issue," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 895-904, May.
    48. Eliasson, Jonas & Jonsson, Lina, 2011. "The unexpected "yes": Explanatory factors behind the positive attitudes to congestion charges in Stockholm," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 636-647, August.
    49. 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.
    50. Kallbekken, Steffen & Aasen, Marianne, 2010. "The demand for earmarking: Results from a focus group study," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 2183-2190, September.
    51. Lawrence H. Goulder & Ian W. H. Parry, 2008. "Instrument Choice in Environmental Policy," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 2(2), pages 152-174, Summer.
    52. Kallbekken, Steffen & Kroll, Stephan & Cherry, Todd L., 2011. "Do you not like Pigou, or do you not understand him? Tax aversion and revenue recycling in the lab," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 53-64, July.
    53. Clinch, J. Peter & Dunne, Louise, 2006. "Environmental tax reform: an assessment of social responses in Ireland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 950-959, May.
    54. Buntaine, Mark T. & Prather, Lauren, 2018. "Preferences for Domestic Action Over International Transfers in Global Climate Policy," Journal of Experimental Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 73-87, July.
    55. Gevrek, Z.Eylem & Uyduranoglu, Ayse, 2015. "Public preferences for carbon tax attributes," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 186-197.
    56. Hensher, David A. & Li, Zheng, 2013. "Referendum voting in road pricing reform: A review of the evidence," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 186-197.
    57. Carl, Jeremy & Fedor, David, 2016. "Tracking global carbon revenues: A survey of carbon taxes versus cap-and-trade in the real world," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 50-77.
    58. Deroubaix, Jose-Frederic & Leveque, Francois, 2006. "The rise and fall of French Ecological Tax Reform: social acceptability versus political feasibility in the energy tax implementation process," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 940-949, May.
    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. Umit, Resul & Schaffer, Lena Maria, 2020. "Attitudes towards carbon taxes across Europe: The role of perceived uncertainty and self-interest," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    2. 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).
    3. 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.
    4. Andrea Baranzini & Stefano Carattini & Linda Tesauro, 2021. "Designing Effective and Acceptable Road Pricing Schemes: Evidence from the Geneva Congestion Charge," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(3), pages 417-482, July.
    5. Douenne, Thomas & Fabre, Adrien, 2020. "French attitudes on climate change, carbon taxation and other climate policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    6. 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.
    7. Hammerle, Mara & Best, Rohan & Crosby, Paul, 2021. "Public acceptance of carbon taxes in Australia," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    8. Thiago Fonseca Morello & Luís Fernando Silva e Silva, 2023. "Garnering support for Pigouvian taxation with tax return: a lab experiment," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 25(2), pages 115-142, April.
    9. Baranzini, Andrea & Borzykowski, Nicolas & Carattini, Stefano, 2018. "Carbon offsets out of the woods? Acceptability of domestic vs. international reforestation programmes in the lab," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 1-12.
    10. Carattini, Stefano & Baranzini, Andrea & Lalive, Rafael, 2018. "Is Taxing Waste a Waste of Time? Evidence from a Supreme Court Decision," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 131-151.
    11. Thomas Douenne & Adrien Fabre, 2019. "Can We Reconcile French People with the Carbon Tax? Disentangling Beliefs from Preferences," Policy Papers 2019.05, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    12. Sommer, Stephan & Mattauch, Linus & Pahle, Michael, 2022. "Supporting carbon taxes: The role of fairness," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    13. 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.
    14. Stefano Carattini & Simon Levin & Alessandro Tavoni, 2019. "Cooperation in the Climate Commons," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 13(2), pages 227-247.
    15. 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.
    16. 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).
    17. Andrea Baranzini & Nicolas Borzykowski & Stefano Carattini, 2016. "Carbon offsets out of the woods? The acceptability of domestic vs. international reforestation programmes," GRI Working Papers 257, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    18. Laurent Ott & Mehdi Farsi & Sylvain Weber, 2021. "Beyond political divides: analyzing public opinion on carbon taxation in Switzerland," Chapters, in: Axel Franzen & Sebastian Mader (ed.), Research Handbook on Environmental Sociology, chapter 17, pages 313-339, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Alberini, Anna & Ščasný, Milan & Bigano, Andrea, 2018. "Policy- v. individual heterogeneity in the benefits of climate change mitigation: Evidence from a stated-preference survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 565-575.
    20. Izlawanie Muhammad & Norfakhirah Nazihah Mohd Hasnu & Mohd Adha Ibrahim & Suhaila Abdul Hamid & Mustafa Mohd Hanefah, 2022. "Trust in Government and Its Determinants: An Empirical Study of Public Acceptability for Carbon Tax in Malaysia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-12, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    carbon taxes; carbon pricing; acceptability; public support; revenue recycling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

    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:ehl:lserod:88137. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.