Experiencing Carbon Pricing

with Stefano Carattini, Chad Kendall, Michael Price, and Arthur Vu

Under Consideration

Many socially desirable policies are not implemented because of their ex-ante unpopularity, but this unpopularity may be overcome through experiencing the policy. In this paper, we examine how opposition to carbon pricing in the state of Washington turned into support after voters experienced a cap-and-trade policy with revenues earmarked for environmental purposes – “cap-and-invest.” Analyzing voting behavior at the census block group level, we observe that support varies by political affiliation as expected, but experience consistently increases support across the board. Using a proprietary survey, we further show that the increase in support among voters in Washington state is specific to the cap-and-invest policy they experienced, rather than increasing support for carbon pricing or climate policies more generally.

NBER Working Paper #34559. You can view the paper here