This article investigates how inequality aversion shapes perceptions of fairness in the context of carbon taxation. While fairness is a key predictor of public support for carbon taxation, the mechanisms underlying perceived fairness remain underexplored. Drawing on a survey experiment with 770 Swiss citizens, we focus on sociotropic (concern for societal inequality) and egotropic (concern for one’s own relative inequality) inequality aversion as the main predictors. We find that perceived fairness increases with expected monetary benefits. Advantaged egotropic inequality aversion (being better off relative to others) consistently reduces perceived fairness, while disadvantaged egotropic aversion shows a weaker negative effect. Sociotropic inequality aversion only decreases perceived fairness among right-leaning individuals; left-leaning respondents often favour unequal outcomes when they disadvantage high emitters. These findings highlight the importance of “pocketbook” concerns as well as ideological differences in fairness perceptions, and suggest that designing carbon taxes to minimise perceived self-serving inequalities could increase political acceptability. The study provides novel insights into how unequal distributional outcomes from carbon taxation affects fairness perceptions.
Presented at the Swiss Political Science Association Congress, February 2024, St. Gallen, Switzerland; Presented at the 9th Workshop of Experimental Economics for the Environment, September 2024, Bochum, Germany
This paper explores how people hold different fairness conceptions on carbon taxation (Prinzing, Balthasar, and Tschannen forthcoming). To analyse the normative concepts of justice, we based our analysis on the triumvirate of tenets laid out by McCauley et al. (2013). The approach has been used widely in the energy justice literature (Heffron 2023; Jenkins et al. 2016; Sovacool and Dworkin 2015). The tenets include distributional justice, procedural justice, and recognition justice, each further distinguished by specific conceptions (Agusdinata et al. 2023; Bal et al. 2023; Bennett et al. 2019; Colquitt 2001; Demski et al. 2019; Hülle, Liebig, and May 2018).
We elicited several variables on socio-demography as well as political attitudes which might influence the normative fairness perceptions (Carattini, Kallbekken, and Orlov 2019; Levi 2021; Thalmann 2004). Using hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analysis on these variables, we identified multiple subgroups within the population with distinct climate policy preferences. These groups differ according to their climate policy preferences. Next, we tested, if the group membership influences preferences on different carbon tax conceptions. We found that group classification can explain differences in what people might consider a fair carbon tax. Furthermore, we can characterize these two groups in terms of age, gender, income and living conditions.
Although carbon taxation is widely recognized as an effective tool for reducing emissions, it continues to face public opposition due to its distributional impact within societies. Redistributing revenue back to the public is a commonly proposed strategy to alleviate this problem. Yet, recent research indicates that such measures increase acceptance only to a limited extent. This paper examines whether redistributions have a stronger positive impact on acceptance, when they are explicitly framed as a measure to increase fairness. Building on policy feedback theory, we examine whether this impact differs when alternative tax designs are compared to an existing carbon tax. We conducted a discrete choice experiment with a representative sample of 800 Swiss citizens, who were randomly assigned to treatments involving a redistribution frame, a reference to the existing carbon tax, or a combination thereof. Preliminary results indicate that redistributions did not increase public acceptance of alternative carbon tax designs. In contrast, presenting the existing carbon tax as a reference point clearly reduced overall acceptance. Yet, the reference to the existing carbon tax made left-leaning citizens and those directly paying the existing tax more willing to accept some otherwise unpopular alternative design features. Our findings contribute to discussions regarding the distributive politics of climate change by demonstrating that fairness cues have minimal impact on acceptance absent tangible benefits. We argue that policy baselines influence perceptions of climate policy instruments both through self-interest and interpretive framing mechanisms. Communication strategies around new carbon tax designs need to be thus firmly anchored on existing policies and tailored to both mechanisms.
Will present at EPG Online Seminars Autum Term 2025
Our study aims to explain why redistributing carbon tax money back to the population has only limited effects on public acceptability. Although redistributions are intended to alleviate personal costs and improve fairness, recent evidence suggests that their impact on acceptability is modest at best. We address this important puzzle through a series of qualitative focus groups with Swiss participants. We employ a hybrid thematic analysis, applying themes from a theoretical framework, while remaining open to inductively derived patterns emerging from participants’ reasoning. This approach enables us to map normative 'break points' in the causal logic of redistribution and to develop a typology of public reasoning. The preliminary results are available at the end of 2025. The findings will advance research on the acceptability of carbon taxes. Insights are intended for both climate policy scholars and policymakers seeking to strengthen the political feasibility of carbon taxation.