How Do Pocketbook and Distributional Concerns Affect Citizens’ Preferences Over Costly Policies? Evidence from experiments on support for carbon taxation

• DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/cuwzs
• Publication Date: 2020-08-11T07:07:26Z
• Authors: Liam F. Beiser-Mc...; Thomas Bernauer
• Keywords: Affect; Carbon tax; Survey data collection

We shed new light on a long-standing question in political science: when confronted with costly policy-choices, do citizens form their preferences based material (economic) concerns or other-regarding motivations, such as the distribution of costs, and how these are moderated by ideology. Using case carbon taxation, widely advocated policy solution to climate change, we conducted survey experiments Germany United States assess relative importance forms preferences. The results show that individuals primarily concerned tax would impact individual income. There also important cross-national differences high-income German respondents being more receptive redistributive design, especially contrast Democrats who significantly decrease support for taxation. These findings highlight constituencies generated policies can alter mass action upon emerging societal problems.