This event will be a HYBRID event. Please register to join this seminar using the button at the top of the page.
If attending in person we look forward to seeing you in Manor Road Building Room G (Manor Road, Oxford, OX1 3UQ). If you are feeling unwell please do not attend and instead watch the event virtually.
If attending virtually please join using these details:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8656...
Meeting ID: 865 6737 7816
Passcode: 797047
Please note that, with the speakers permission, we will be recording this event for those who are unable to attend. The recording will be added to the event entry on the website under 'Past Events'.
Please contact events@inet.ox.ac.uk for more information.
ABSTRACT:
Support or opposition for policies can be determined both by social motives and by (possibly misinformed) reasoning about them. For example, carbon pricing is often promoted as a key climate policy by economists, but remains relatively unpopular among the general public. In this study, we conduct an online survey experiment with a representative sample of U.S. adults (N = 2,685) to investigate the causal impact of social norms and economic reasoning on public support for carbon pricing. Using exogenously assigned video interventions that embed norm information or policy explanation, we show that, immediately after exposure, both types of information increase support for carbon pricing by around 5 percentage points. A follow-up survey more than 4 months later reveals that this initial increase fades away, but that a combined norm and policy explanation intervention retains a significant negative effect on the share of individuals who strongly oppose carbon pricing. Interestingly, we observe no initial effects on incentivized environmental donations, and a significant decrease in (large) donations in the follow-up. One-shot interventions like ours may thus constitute a first step in overcoming public resistance, but struggle to foster persistent engagement.