Behavioural Economics and Public Support for Carbon Pricing: A Revenue Recycling Scheme to Address the Political Economy of Carbon Taxation

In: European journal of risk regulation: EJRR ; at the intersection of global law, science and policy, Band 10, Heft 3, S. 554-570

Abstract

Even though carbon pricing is widely accepted as the most efficient policy instrument for climate change mitigation, it has been severely held back by a lack of public support. Building on research in behavioural sciences, we propose a revenue recycling scheme that aims to foster public support for carbon taxes. The scheme has two main strengths: (i) it may allow the implementatin of carbon taxes with higher tax rates than those currently prevailing in most jurisdictions; (ii) it relies on a number of accessible technologies, and thus it can be implemented in a wide variety of settings, both in urban and rural areas of developing and developed countries.