Publications

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Working paper  

 (Available here)

In Gov we Trust : Are Trust and Political Ideology Important Factors of Public Acceptance for Environmental Policies?

Catherine Benjamina, Sebastian Irigoyenb, David Mascletc Fabio Padovanod

January 2023

Abstract. 

Several environmental policies are efficient in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However these policies remain still very unpopular among the public and climate issues often provide ideal targets for populists who frame these issues as elite matters. In this current paper we attempt to answer the following question : are environmental issues a matter of elites? We conjecture that this is not necessarily the case but that there exists several factors that may refrain the poorest and less educated individuals from accepting environmental policies. The first explanation relies on the household’s budget constraint and the fact that higher socio-occupational categories are in a better financial position to accept costly environmental policies. This explanation relates to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that stipulates that individuals must have fulfilled lower needs before addressing higher levels of needs such as environmental issues. The second explanation is that higher socio-occupational categories are better educated and that education may affect support of environmental policies indirectly by reducing ignorance and mistrust, which constitute key barriers to public acceptance of environmental policies. We ran an empirical analysis based on the data from the European Social Survey (2016). We find that higher educated and income individuals are more likely to favor most of environmental policies, suggesting that educational background play both a direct and an indirect role. We also find that both mistrust in institutions and right wing populism, as proxies of skepticism constitute important barriers to most of environmental policies. More surprisingly left wing populism has no negative impact on support for public policies. A possible reason behind this finding is that on average voters of left wing populist parties are on average better educated and thus would suffer less from ignorance of environmental issues.

Keywords: Public support, Environmental policies, trust, populism

JEL Codes Q50; H11 H12 D02 D12

Presented in:    

• AFSE  2023  Sciencie Po (Paris)  

• Workshop   EDGE  Université de Rennes 1  2023

Working paper

“State intervention or individual responsibility? Determinants of environmental actions according to welfare regimes and political ideologies” 

Link here: State intervention or individual responsibility? Determinants of environmental actions according to welfare regimes and political ideologies - Archive ouverte HAL 

 Abstract

This article sheds new light on how welfare regimes and political affiliation influence the willingness to protect the environment, considering a country group perspective, a temporal and individual dimension simultaneously. Governmental and non-governmental aspects of environmental action are examined to determine whether they complement or substitute for each other. The main findings indicate that environmental action varies across welfare state regimes and political affiliations. Protectionist countries are more likely to take interventionist action for environmental protection than liberal regimes, while liberal nations are more likely to support non-governmental initiatives. In right-wing government trends, people express less approval for environmental policies but advocate more climatic protests. Environmental programs find greater acceptance when incumbent governments are left-leaning. Left-wing partisans favor environmental initiatives more than those on the right-wing. Countries with greater inequality and higher levels of corruption express a lower intention to pay taxes but express a greater willingness to protest to preserve the environment.

Keywords: Environmental Concern; Pro-environmental policy attitudes; Welfare State Regime; Protectionism; Political affiliation; International Social Survey Programme

JEL Classification: D31, H23, P48, Q5, Q58,

Presented in:   

• 10th FAERE Annual Conference 2023 in  Montpellier University (forthcoming in September 8th-9th)

“The determinants of Environmental Concern: revisiting  Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs model”

(available upon request)

Abstract

This paper examines the determinants of Environmental Concern (EC) at three different levels: individual, country and temporal level. In this current study, we attempt to contribute to the existing literature to what extent observed differences in environmental concerns could be explained by Maslow’s pyramid of needs. The main results suggest that wealthier individuals and affluent countries have higher EC. However, in the presence of economic instability, the intention to protect the environment in financial aspects decreases. A substitution effect is observed when people are unemployed; they are less willing to pay taxes but support environmental protests. Our study sheds light that environmental actions are consistent with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model, as a certain income level is required to express EC.

Keywords: Environmental Concern; Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model; International Social Survey Programme, Pro-environmental behavior

JEL Classification: D09, D31, H23, Q5

Coauthored with Catherine Benjamin (Rennes University 1, CREM ) and David Masclet (Rennes University 1 , CREAM & CIRANO) 

Presented in:   

• 9th FAERE Annual Conference 2022 in  Rouen University

• 1ére Journée de Econometrié Appliqué Michel Terraza  2022 (Montpellier)

•  EDGE Workshop LEMNA Nantes  2022

Research in progress:

• Study of Subjective Well-Being and Mass Media Influence in Latin America (With Guillermo Arenas-Díaz)