The Acceptance of Environmental Taxes: An Empirical Public Choice Investigation (Draft)

In our paper we aim to identify which individual characteristics form environmental policy attitudes and use data gathered in the European Value Survey in 2008 to empirically test our findings. Knowing voters’ motivation provides valuable insights into how to establish more efficient environmental policies. Furthermore, based upon the results of our literature analysis, we take a deeper look into the importance of trust in political institutions on the willingness to accept environmental taxes using data compiled by the International Social Survey Programme in 2010. 1 Kollmann, A. and Schneider, F. (2010) Why does Environmental Policy in Representative Democracies Tend to be Inadequate? A Preliminary Public Choice Analysis. Sustainability 2010, 2(12), 3710-3734. 2 Kollmann, A. Reichl, J. and Schneider, F. (2012) Who is Willing to Pay for the Environment in the EU An Empirical Analysis. EuroEconomica; 5: 15–27. and Kollmann, A. and Reichl, J. (2015) How Trust in Governments influences the Acceptance of Environmental Taxes, in Kollmann, A., Schneider, F. and Reichl, J. (Eds.), Political Economy and Instruments of Environmental Politics. The MIT Press, 2015. 3 More details: https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/energy-strategy/2050-energy-strategy