Limited impacts of carbon tax rebate programmes on public support for carbon pricing

Mildenberger, Matto; Lachapelle, Erick; Harrison, Kathryn; Stadelmann-Steffen, Isabelle (2022). Limited impacts of carbon tax rebate programmes on public support for carbon pricing. Nature climate change, 12(2), pp. 141-147. Nature Publishing Group 10.1038/s41558-021-01268-3

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Revenue recycling through lump-sum dividends may help mitigate public opposition to carbon taxes, yet evidence from real-world policies is lacking. Here we use survey data from Canada and Switzerland, the only countries with climate rebate programmes, to show low public awareness and substantial underestimation of climate rebate amounts in both countries. Information was obtained using a five-wave panel survey that tracked public attitudes before, during and after implementation of Canada’s 2019 carbon tax and dividend policy and a large-scale survey of Swiss residents. Experimental provision of individualized information about true rebate amounts had modest impacts on public support in Switzerland but potentially deleterious effects on support in Canada, especially among Conservative voters. In both countries, we find that perceptions of climate rebates are structured less by informed assessments of economic interest than by partisan identities. These results suggest limited effects of existing rebate programmes, to date, in reshaping the politics of carbon taxation

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Political Science
10 Strategic Research Centers > Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR)

UniBE Contributor:

Stadelmann, Isabelle

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 320 Political science

ISSN:

1758-678X

Publisher:

Nature Publishing Group

Language:

English

Submitter:

Isabelle Stadelmann

Date Deposited:

02 Jun 2022 08:19

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 16:19

Publisher DOI:

10.1038/s41558-021-01268-3

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/169899

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/169899

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