Should We Trust in Values? Explaining Public Support for  Pro-Environmental Taxes

Harring, Niklas; Jagers, Sverker C.

doi:10.3390/su5010210

Cited by 138 publications

(141 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…A closely related explanation would be that students perceive that a third party (or elite) intervention is necessary. If students recognize the collective action dilemma of environmental degradation this could trigger a demand for elite action in terms of government intervention (Harring 2016;Harring and Jagers 2013). We have reasons to believe that we will find stronger effects among economics and law students (hierarchy-enhancing) while less strong among social science students (hierarchy-attenuating, in our case political science students).…”

Section: Higher Education and Environmental Supportmentioning

confidence: 93%

The Effects of Higher Education in Economics, Law and Political Science on Perceptions of Responsibility and Sustainability

Harring

Lundholm

Torbjörnsson

2016

Handbook of Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development in Higher Education

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Problems of environmental degradation are often conceptualized in terms of collective action dilemmas, and imply an increased demand for coordination and steering by public authorities. Social science is struggling with understanding how attitudes to collective action dilemmas and state intervention actually are formed. In the literature on environmental attitude formation, education is often claimed to be an important factor. It is argued for example that people with university degrees develop certain values essential for beliefs about personal responsibility and concern for the environment. Still there are a number of questions unanswered. For example, we know little about the effects of different educational programs. In this study we test the hypotheses by using a unique longitudinal data set based on surveys distributed to students in economics, law, and political science at seven universities in Sweden. Our results show a slight decrease in ascribed personal responsibility for environmental protection among the students after one semester. Instead, students ascribe an increased responsibility to various institutions and actors.

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Section: Higher Education and Environmental Supportmentioning

confidence: 93%

The Effects of Higher Education in Economics, Law and Political Science on Perceptions of Responsibility and Sustainability

Harring

Lundholm

Torbjörnsson

2016

Handbook of Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development in Higher Education

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“…Referred to as the value-belief-norm (VBN) model, values, i.e., general conceptions of the desirable, lead to environmental beliefs (awareness of environmental consequences and responsibility for them), which in the end form personal environmental norms and behaviour [37]. The evidence supporting the validity of the VBN model is quite massive [35,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. In a broad sense, findings from environmental psychology show that pro-environmental norms and behaviour are rooted in a pro-environmental value orientation.…”

Section: Teachers' Attitudes and Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning for the Future? Effects of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) on Teacher Education Students

et al. 2013

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Currently, politicians, university representatives, scholars and leading NGOs share a strong belief in the ability of educational systems to generate positive attitudes to sustainable development (SD) among citizens, with the idea of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as perhaps the most apparent expression of this conviction. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether ESD might have the intended effects on teacher education students. More specifically, we account for the results from a panel study on the effects of a course on SD held in autumn 2010 at the University of Gothenburg (n = 323) on teacher education students. The surveys consisted of questions about the students' concerns about various issues, including issues related to SD, and their attitudes towards SD and views of moral obligations to contributing to SD. The study included a control group (n = 97) consisting of students from the teacher-training programme at University West, which had not and did not include ESD. We find positive effects of ESD on almost all attitudes and perceptions, including e.g., personal responsibility in relation to SD and willingness to contribute to SD, while there is no noticeable effect in the control group. We conclude the paper by discussing the implications of our results for the idea of ESD in teacher training programmes at Swedish higher education institutions. OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2013, 5 5136

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“…One of these factors is institutional enforcement. Institutions, such as the protection of property rights, legal origins, democracy and governance, have been shown to have a strong impact on the quality of the environment [10][11][12][13][14]. However, among the institutions studied from an environmental perspective, that of the rule of law has not yet received the attention it deserves.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Is There Any Evidence on the Existence of an Environmental Taxation Kuznets Curve? The Case of European Countries under Their Rule of Law Enforcement

2014

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Abstract:The paper gives new insights into the environmental taxation policy, demonstrating the existence of an inverse U-shaped relationship between environmental taxation and income in European countries. Our findings reveal this relationship to be influenced by enforcement of the rule of law, which contributes to shifting the turning point on the curve to lower income levels. We show that former transition economies have not reached the turning point due to weak institutions. To achieve the goal of sustainable development, the European Environment Agency's Environmental Taxation Reform, proposing to shift taxation from "goods" to "bads", should be accompanied by effective enforcement or the rule of law. The heterogeneity found between market-based and former transition European countries demonstrates the existence of problems at the EU-level in the coordination of environmental policies and enforcing the rule of law. In addition, the analysis of the determinants of environmental taxation points to the importance of factors related to consumption and production, governance, environmental quality, oil price shocks and the shift of environmental policy in European countries.

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Should We Trust in Values? Explaining Public Support for Pro-Environmental Taxes

Cited by 138 publications

References 47 publications

The Effects of Higher Education in Economics, Law and Political Science on Perceptions of Responsibility and Sustainability

The Effects of Higher Education in Economics, Law and Political Science on Perceptions of Responsibility and Sustainability

Learning for the Future? Effects of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) on Teacher Education Students

Is There Any Evidence on the Existence of an Environmental Taxation Kuznets Curve? The Case of European Countries under Their Rule of Law Enforcement

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