Learning Economics and Attitudes to Market Solutions to Environmental Problems

Abstract

Climate change challenges governments to reduce emissions, and to gain support for such actions from their citizens. This can be in the form of taxation or legislation, or other forms of government interventions. In previous research, several instruments have been developed to capture attitudes towards the roles of markets and governments in the economy. Some of these instruments have assumed that respondents will have the same attitude towards the role of markets and governments, regardless of the context (e.g., welfare, environment, health) or the form of government intervention (law, taxation, subsidy, spending etc.). However, these studies have not examined attitudes towards, or belief in, the efficacy of government intervention in markets, through microeconomic policies on taxation (e.g., duties levied on particular products) or subsidies. This paper reports on the results of taking such a specific focus, that is, investigating economics students' knowledge of, and attitudes towards, government interventions in markets, specifically addressing the problem of climate change. We make use of unique, two-wave longitudinal data from Swedish university students. The data were collected during their initial semester at the university. The first data collection was performed at the beginning of the semester, August/September 2014, and the second wave of data collection was performed in December/January 2014/2015, at the end of the semester. We were able to match 414 students between the first and second survey. The results show that students of economics change their policy attitudes and become more knowledgeable in economics. After one semester, they are more likely to think of economic instruments/incentives (taxes and subsidies) as good and efficient policy instruments, and less likely to think that other instruments (regulation and information) are good and efficient policy instruments. However, further analyses show that knowledgeable students do not have different attitudes toward environmental policy instruments, compared to students who do not answer the questions correctly. Hence, there seems to be some other factor affecting students in economics during their first semester, that changes their attitudes towards environmental policy instruments.

A longitudinal study of upper secondary school students’ values and beliefs regarding policy responses to climate change

“…We found out that orientation towards biospheric values was positively associated with willingness to reduce personal consumption and to accept higher prices. Interestingly we found a positive association at T1 between belief in the efficacy of the price mechanism, the likelihood of support for tax rises (that would work through the price mechanism) and the likelihood that a student would regard action on climate change as a responsibility of government (supporting the results of Harring, Davies, and Lundholm 2017). We also found evidence of indirect associations between value orientations and norms, mediated by beliefs as anticipated by the VBN model.…”

“…Very little research has, so far, examined whether this focus is associated with impact on dispositions towards the economics of actions in response to climate change. Harring, Davies, and Lundholm (2017) found that whilst economics undergraduates improved their understanding of markets and market-based government intervention, these improvements were not associated at individual student level with an increase in support for use of market-based government interventions. This study adds to research knowledge by examining change in the value orientations and beliefs of students in their final two years of secondary school.…”

Ethics, responsibility and sustainability orientation among economics and management masters’ students

“…Providing some information on a sustainability unit within an MBA programme, Stubbs and Cocklin (2008) mention the widespread acceptance of the neoclassical paradigm’s assumptions by students, adding that until the sustainability unit they have not even questioned such assumptions. Harring et al (2017, p. 11) conducted one of the few studies examining the influence of studying economics on the attitudes towards the roles of markets and governments towards an ERS-related issue, climate change mitigation. Based on a sample of Swedish students of economics, political sciences and law, these researchers found that students who enrolled in a module in introductory microeconomics became “became slightly more supportive of market-based government environmental policies and slightly less supportive of non-market policies”.…”

Solving Environmental Problems Together? The Roles of Value Orientations and Trust in the State in Environmental Policy Support among Swedish Undergraduate Students

“…A comprehensive research review [10] summarized a range of factors, such as socio-economic variables, ideology, and various contextual factors, deemed particularly relevant to policy preferences, based on the understanding that support for pro-environmental government intervention has two fundamental bases: first, whether people support the objectives of the policy (e.g., a healthier environment) and, second, whether they trust or perceive that the government can achieve the objectives of the policy or intervention. A Swedish longitudinal study [11] found that improved subject knowledge could only partially explain more positive attitudes towards environmental policy instruments among economics students. Changed attitudes may also be framed by powerful values and TIS.…”