Social identity and the backlash against carbon taxes
The DEMS Economics Seminar series is proud to host
Emeline Bezin
(Université de Rennes)
with Fanny Henriet
ABSTRACT:
Over the past decade, several countries have experienced significant public opposition to carbon taxes. A notable example is the ’gilets jaunes’ movement in France, which was partly sparked by a planned increase in the carbon tax. One possible explanation for this opposition is the regressive nature of carbon taxes. This has led to a widely accepted view that making carbon pricing schemes progressive should make them acceptable. However, recent evidence, whether from survey data or real-world cases such as Canada, challenges this view, suggesting that citizens’ preferences for climate policy are shaped by more than material self-interest. In this paper, we argue that a promising way to understand opposition to carbon taxes is to adopt a social identity perspective where people's sense of self is tied to the social groups to which they belong. We develop a model of votes for a carbon tax in which identification is a choice which involves a trade-off between a benefit when one identifies with a group that enjoys high status and a loss from identifying with a group whose prototypical member is different from that person along relevant dimensions. Our theory provides a unified explanation for the formation of new opposition identities and citizens' backlash against carbon taxes. It also highlights previously overlooked determinants of this backlash, rooted in group inequalities and cultural polarization.
The seminar will be in presence, Room: 4096 - Building U7