The unpopularity of incentive-based instruments: what improves the cost–benefit ratio?

Stadelmann‐Steffen, Isabelle; Dermont, Clau

doi:10.1007/s11127-018-0513-9

Cited by 37 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our results do not support existing research 21,32,33 that finds costly market-based or push measures per se to receive less support than non-market-based or pull measures. Although there are no simplistic decision heuristics for policymakers, careful policy design can increase support across countries and is pivotal to reducing political risk.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Our analysis of policy packages does not support some of the findings of previous research examining citizens' preferences for different instruments in isolation 21,28,32,33 . For example, our results do not support the widespread claim that market-based or push measures per se receive less support than non-market-based or pull measures.…”

Section: Policy Design and Packaging Effects Vary Across Countriescontrasting

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Policy packaging can make food system transformation feasible

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ractitioners and scientists are calling on governments to regulate and incentivize sustainable food consumption and production 1-5. In addition to supply-side measures that foster sustainable production methods, many advocate demand-side policies that target consumption behaviour 3,5-7. Demand-side policies are regarded as paramount for reaching the climate change mitigation target set in the Paris Agreement, reducing the risks of climate tipping points and preventing 'carbon leakage' (that is, avoiding an increase in imports of emission-intensive food products as a substitute for reducing the domestic production of these commodities) 6-9. Researchers also suggest packaging (that is, systematically bundling) policy instruments on both the demand and supply side 3,5,10-12 to combine multiple marginal gains 13 and accelerate the sustainability transformation of the food system 1-5. Arguably, the main hurdle to implementing such measures is not technical but political, with political feasibility challenges stemming from insufficient public acceptance of policy interventions 6,8,11,14,15. Environmental policy analysts usually anticipate trade-offs between problem-solving effectiveness and political feasibility 8,11,15,16. While policy experts consider stringent policies to be more effective at reducing environmental impacts 17-19 , public policy specialists often note that public opposition and political risks are higher when governments deploy policies that citizens perceive to be costly and as interfering with their personal consumption choices 8,11,16,20,21. To identify environmental policies with the potential to be both effective and politically feasible, it is thus important to investigate public support for sustainable food policies that are likely to become publicly salient and contested. To study public support for different policy packages aimed at reducing the consumption of meat and fish products, we carried out a survey-embedded conjoint choice experiment in China, Germany and the United States (total n = 4,874), using quota sampling to ensure representativeness in terms of age, employment status, gender, income and region (see Methods). These countries were selected for their importance in global food production and consumption, as well as their diversity in terms of socioeconomic, cultural and political systems. Specifically, they are among the world's largest producers and consumers of meat and fish products; hence, they exert a major environmental impact 22,23. This experimental approach allowed us to evaluate public support for specific and more complex policy designs in the form of policy packages 11,24. Thus, our study design mimics realistic choice situations 25,26 and generates new insights about policy packaging that go above and beyond those of current research that analyses citizens' preferences for policy measures in isolation. In what follows, we show how policy packaging, in contrast with single policy instruments, can help to mitigate the potential trade-off between political feasibility ...

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Policy Design and Packaging Effects Vary Across Countriescontrasting

confidence: 99%

Policy packaging can make food system transformation feasible

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To test our hypotheses, we estimate hierarchical linear models and account for group-specific relationships, such as varying policy effects contingent on individual trust and climate change attitudes, by including cross-level interactions. In addition to the main explanatory variables, we also include a series of individual-level variables based on previous research (e.g., Ingold et al 2018;Stadelmann-Steffen and Dermont 2018). Information on coding and descriptive statistics of all included variables can be found in Table A.1 of the online appendix.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The cost structure in the climate and energy policy sector means that such negative feedback may be especially relevant. In particular, ecological taxes and subsidies contain inherent costs (Stadelmann-Steffen and Dermont, 2018), which tend to be highly visible (Stokes, 2013: 49).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public opinion in policy contexts. A comparative analysis of domestic energy policies and individual policy preferences in Europe

Stadelmann‐Steffen

Eder

2020

International Political Science Review

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent research and real-world processes suggest that effective climate change mitigation policies are not feasible without at least a certain degree of public support. Hence, we investigate the link between existing domestic energy policies and individual policy instrument preferences in 21 European countries. We assume a policy feedback perspective and, thus, start from the idea that the current domestic energy context influences what future policies are possible and preferred by citizens. High political trust and strong climate change attitudes are expected to strengthen this relationship. Our results do not lend support to a general link between existing policies and future policy preferences. However, we find evidence of a positive policy feedback in individuals with strong climate change attitudes and/or high levels of political trust, which, depending on each country’s current energy policy, either hinders or facilitates the energy transition.

show abstract

“…This empirical approach, however, may not accurately reflect how policy-making actually unfolds and may raise analytical issues of whether published findings on push versus pull and market-versus non-marketinstruments uphold when they appear in policypackages, that is an appropriate combination of different policy instruments merged into one proposal (Howlett andRayner 2013, Givoni 2014). Push measures tend to encounter greater political feasibility problems than pull measures (Steg et al 2006, Rhodes et al 2017, similarly to market-based versus non-market instruments (Dresner et al 2006, Stadelmann-Steffen andDermont 2018). Push measures (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In search of politically feasible policy-packages for sustainable passenger transport: insights from choice experiments in China, Germany, and the USA

Wicki

Fesenfeld

Bernauer

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The main obstacle to making the transportation sector ecologically more sustainable is political feasibility. Effective policy-interventions usually encounter strong public opposition as they interfere in costly ways with people's daily lives, unveiling a dilemma between political feasibility and environmental policy effectiveness. Evidencing the existence of this dilemma, the literature on attitudes towards different policy instrument types maintains that so-called push measures are less supported by citizens than pull measures, and that market-based instruments tend to be less supported than non-market instruments. While these findings may uphold when considering single policy instruments, whether they continue to do so when considering policy-packages, that is, simultaneously implemented policy-interventions consisting of several policy instruments, remains unclear. To identify politically feasible and effective policy-packages aimed at greening the transportation sector we use choice experiments with representative samples of citizens from China, Germany, and the USA (N=4′876). Contrary to existing literature, we find that public support does not necessarily depend on the instrument type but rather on specific policy design and is highly context dependent. Moreover, despite significant differences between the three country contexts considered, various combinations of policy measures appear to be both potentially effective and supported by most citizens. Altogether, these results suggest that carefully bundled policy-packages may allow governments to employ instruments that would not be politically feasible if introduced in isolation.

show abstract

The unpopularity of incentive-based instruments: what improves the cost–benefit ratio?

Cited by 37 publications

References 46 publications

Policy packaging can make food system transformation feasible

Policy packaging can make food system transformation feasible

Public opinion in policy contexts. A comparative analysis of domestic energy policies and individual policy preferences in Europe

In search of politically feasible policy-packages for sustainable passenger transport: insights from choice experiments in China, Germany, and the USA

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About