Does corruption shape attitudes towards carbon taxes? Experimental evidence from Mexico and Sweden

Economists and policy experts have long argued for the implementation of carbon taxes as the most cost-efficient way to decrease carbon emissions and enhance climate change mitigation. Public support for such taxes is generally lacking, however, compromising their political feasibility. While a rang...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energy research & social science 2024-06, Vol.112, p.103493, Article 103493
Main Author: Davidovic, Dragana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carbon taxes
Corruption
Policy attitudes
Political Science
Statsvetenskap
Survey experiment
Trust
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Summary:Economists and policy experts have long argued for the implementation of carbon taxes as the most cost-efficient way to decrease carbon emissions and enhance climate change mitigation. Public support for such taxes is generally lacking, however, compromising their political feasibility. While a range of determinants of climate policy attitudes have been studied, the role of institutional context, and specifically corruption in explaining public aversion towards climate taxes has been largely unexplored. This paper investigates the links between corruption perceptions, trust, and attitudes towards climate taxes in a survey experiment fielded in Sweden and Mexico. Using randomized vignettes to stimulate high-corrupt and low-corrupt perceptions among about 3000 respondents from each country, the analyses evaluate the effect of corruption on trust and attitudes towards climate taxes and explore potential individual-level mechanisms at play using post-treatment questions. The study shows that increased corruption perceptions generate negative attitudes towards climate taxes, even among those who hold pro-environmental value orientations and concerns and political value orientations in favor of state regulation. Mediation analyses suggest that decreased levels of political and institutional trust may explain this effect, but that negative policy-specific beliefs also may play a mediating role. The study contributes to an increased understanding of the negative effect of corruption on climate policy attitudes in diverse institutional settings and outlines avenues for future research.
ISSN:2214-6296
2214-6326
2214-6326
DOI:10.1016/j.erss.2024.103493