How relevant is NIMBYism in public goods provision? Experimental insights from 5G antenna placement in Switzerland

Abstract

Distributional implications of public goods provision may affect the ability of societies to provide these. Particularly, localized provision costs may result in opposition in the vicinity of provision sites, reducing provision levels and/or efficiency (“not-in-my-backyard” (NIMBY) challenge). We examine mass public support on policy provision in this regard, focusing on 5G, the latest technology standard for mobile data transmission, and the placement of 5G antennas in particular. Based on survey experiments with a geo-coded representative sample of over 5’000 residents of Switzerland, revealing real-world antenna locations to respondents, we find that NIMBYism plays a role for individual attitudes/policy preference formation towards 5G expansion. NIMBYism also affects the (stated) propensity to engage in political action against 5G antennas, irrespective of monetary costs. Finally, NIMBYism can be mitigated when citizens decide under a veil of ignorance on a feasible distribution of siting locations, leaving actual site choice to be a technical process.

Do Eco-Labels Enhance International Nimbyism within Consumer Preferences?

“…Research on environmental NIMBYism has focused mainly on domestic conflicts in situations where public goods provision imposes local costs at provision sites (and benefits to society overall). Prominent examples are conflicts over waste disposal, wind turbines, water reservoirs and dams, and mobile communication antennas (Carley et al, 2020;Rudolph et al, 2022). Opposition, in this context, is usually motivated by demand for local environmental public goods (e.g., landscape).…”

Do eco-labels enhance international NIMBYism within consumer preferences?

“…Research on environmental NIMBYism has focused mainly on domestic conflicts in situations where public goods provision imposes local costs at provision sites (and benefits to society overall). Prominent examples are conflicts over waste disposal, wind turbines, water reservoirs and dams, and mobile communication antennas (Carley et al, 2020;Kraft & Clary, 1991;Rudolph et al, 2022;van der Horst, 2007). Opposition, in this context, is usually motivated by demand for local environmental public goods.…”

“…We used several items in the survey to assess the robustness of respondent preferences. First, recent research suggests that consumers have very limited knowledge of where, geographically, the environmental impacts of their consumption materialize and often underestimate the impact of domestic consumption abroad (Presberger et al, 2022;Rudolph et al, 2022). Hence, to control for knowledge effects we included an informational vignette experiment (before the conjoint experiment) in which the treatment group received a text and graph illustrating the impact of domestic consumption abroad.…”