Carbon Pricing, Carbon Dividends and Cooperation: Experimental Evidence

作者：Sebastian Bachler, Sarah Lynn Flecke, Jürgen Huber, Michael Kirchler, Rene Schwaiger · 发表于：Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1016/j.jebo.2024.07.004 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Economic and Environmental Valuation、Environmental Education and Sustainability、Climate Change Policy and Economics

We investigated whether carbon taxes with and without carbon dividends improve cooperative behavior to mitigate simulated climate change. We implemented a randomized controlled trial on a large sample of the U.S. general population (N=2,116). Played in real-time in groups of four, we tested three carbon-pricing treatments and a baseline condition within a modified threshold public goods game of loss avoidance. We found that a carbon tax coupled with carbon dividends reduces carbon-emitting group consumption relative to a baseline condition with no tax, and relative to a carbon tax only. A carbon tax coupled with carbon dividends paid out to below-average polluters (asymmetric dividend) worked best, with 94% of groups remaining below a critical consumption (emission) threshold. We also found that experiencing the asymmetric dividend condition positively affected perceptions of carbon pricing with carbon dividends.