Environmental Impacts and Public Opinion About International Trade: Experimental Evidence from Six OECD Countries

Abstract

Do environmental implications of international trade influence public support for economic globalization? And under what conditions do environmental considerations shape individuals’ trade attitudes and policy preferences? In this study, we examine the microfoundations of the trade–environment nexus based on survey-embedded experiments in six OECD countries. Our empirical findings demonstrate that environmental implications have a substantial causal effect on public opinion about international trade. Furthermore, our results indicate that citizens are similarly sensitive to both domestic and international environmental implications of trade. These findings suggest that there is probably sufficient public support for green economy policies that take into account the global rather than only national environmental impacts from trade when designing trade policies.

Public Demand for Extraterritorial Environmental and Social Public Goods Provision

“…Exposure to public opinion polls can, for example, lead politicians to change both their priorities and positions in political speech (Hager and Hilbig 2020). For environmental policy, as summarized by Nguyen, Huber and Bernauer (2021) Bernauer 2017; Bernauer and Gampfer 2015;Tingley and Tomz 2014). Last but not least, the article contributes a public opinion perspective to the literature studying factors that facilitate the diffusion of norms (Zimmermann 2016;Zwingel 2012).…”

Education and Trade Attitudes: Revisiting the Role of Economic Interest

“…Future research could also scrutinize how education affects the perception of trade's consequences on other issues. For example, how does education influence citizens' perception of the relation between trade and environmental degradation (Nguyen et al, 2021) or social rights (Bastiaens and Postnikov, 2020)? Naturally, these dimensions and perceptions associated with them play a major role in public opposition to trade agreements, such as the EU-Mercosur trade agreement.…”

Appeal of word of mouth: Influences of public opinions and sentiment on ports in corporate choice of import and export trade in the post-COVID-19 era

“…Therefore, port management in the new era should focus on the decision makers of corporate import and export trade and change their willingness to buy services through scientific and effective methods. However, the occurrence of COVID-19 has changed the marketing ecosystem, and traditional face-to-face marketing methods are no longer appropriate ( Aharon and Siev, 2021 ), and decision makers of corporate import and export trade are more likely to trust the online information they browse, and the effects of public opinion formed by online news and related evaluation are gradually emerging on the choice of corporate import and export trade ( Nguyen et al, 2021 ; Smedley, 2021 ). The COVID-19 has accelerated the application of the Internet in corporate marketing.…”