• Energy Research

Abstract Researchers from different disciplines have different opinions about carbon pricing. To better understand the reasoning behind these perspectives, we utilize responses to three open-ended questions from a global survey among almost 800 researchers from a wide variety of fields who published on climate policy. Using methods from computational linguistics, we classify reflections of researchers on the main strengths and weaknesses of carbon pricing compared with other policy instruments in seven and six topics, respectively. The results indicate that the main perceived strengths of carbon pricing are that it is effective and efficient at reducing emissions, gives clear investment incentives, decentralizes policy, among others. The main perceived weaknesses of carbon pricing are related to its potentially regressive effects on households, low social-political support, and amenability to manipulation—to name a few. Surprisingly, not all these perceptions are in line with established theory and empirical evidence. Finally, we collect suggestions for future research. Among nine frequently mentioned themes are improving public understanding of carbon pricing, political acceptability, synergies with other policies, long-term effects, and implementation in an equitable way in developing countries and worldwide. In addition, we highlight several less frequent but arguably innovative research avenues. Finally, we report to what extent the identified topics on strengths, weaknesses and knowledge gaps are significantly related to academic experience, gender, GDP per capita in the countries of origin and residence of the survey participants, and perceived importance of carbon pricing. This information helps identifying key differences in views within the scientific community on carbon pricing and can guide communication between fields aimed at reaching more consensus on climate policy.

The debate about the relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability involves many dimensions as well as much diversity in terminology. While it is often summarized in terms of dichotomous pro- and anti-growth positions, several studies indicate that additional views exist, and that these may differ between experts and the general public. The objective of this paper is to identify and analyze segments of the scientific and general population with distinct views in this respect. To this end, we bring together two data sets: one from a nationally representative survey of the general public of Spain (N = 1004) and another from an international survey of researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds (N = 814). Using latent class analysis, we identify three similar segments in the two samples, labeled as Green growth, Agrowth and Degrowth. Overall, clusters are more consistent, better distinguishable on all constituent dimensions and more polarized in the scientific than public opinion survey. In addition, we find that diverging views on social issues are more strongly associated with distinct clusters in the public opinion sample, and on environmental issues in the scientific opinion sample.

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M Studies on socio-economic impacts of climate and energy policies tend to focus on income and expenditure effects. For analyses that go beyond monetary dimensions, time-diary data have proven to be useful. Here we investigate how work time relates to leisure activity structures and associated energy use for different types of employees. To this end, an analysis of time-use data is undertaken for Finland and France. Novel elements are (1) a differentiation between part-time and full-time employees, (2) the use of distinct energy intensities of different activities by household type instead of average energy intensities, and (3) allowing for non-linear relationships between work time and the allocation of other activities. Our results suggest that the effects of work time on energy use are rather homogeneous in Finland, whereas we find more differences between employee types in France. In both countries, adjustment of leisure-activity duration is sometimes strong initially but flattening for longer work hours. This relates to another finding, namely that the composition of leisure activities differs between people with distinct work hours. Our study suggests that analysis of disaggregated time-use data can add relevant insights for evaluation, and possibly design, of energy, climate and labour-market policies.

Beliefs about other people's opinions on climate change influence one's own opinion. Such beliefs can, however, suffer from biases in perception. Using two nationally representative surveys, we examine this issue in a new context, namely of carbon-tax acceptance in Spain. We find that the more one expects the tax to be accepted by others, the more one accepts it personally. But opponents of a carbon tax tend to strongly overestimate the prevalence of their opinion, i.e. they exhibit a so-called false consensus effect. In contrast, despite holding the majority view, tax supporters somewhat underestimate the prevalence of their own view, which is known as pluralistic ignorance. We further test the role of information provision by providing participants with different percentages of people accepting the tax. Overall, we find little evidence that such information provision significantly increases tax acceptance. The impact of information provision on tax acceptance tends to be moderated by the degree of false consensus.

Considering innovations as a key factor of economic growth, in this paper we identify main instruments stimulating innovative activity in Russian regions. Since the number of potential factors of enterprises innovative activity and respective hypotheses is large, the process of model selection becomes a crucial part of the empirical implementation. A new efficient solution to this problem is suggested, applying optimization heuristics. The model selection is based on information criteria and the Sargan test within the framework of a log-linear panel data model.

AbstractThere is an ongoing discussion about the effectiveness of carbon pricing, with a strong division between optimists and pessimists. A recent review study by Lilliestam, Patt and Bersalli (2021) of the impact of carbon pricing on low-carbon innovation and deep carbonization concludes that there is no evidence for such an impact. We evaluate this study and identify various shortcomings of it, which together cast strong doubts on its main conclusion. Instead, we conclude, based on the studies reviewed by the authors and additional, overlooked literature, that carbon pricing has had a small but positive and significant effect on low-carbon innovation. Our evaluation provides lessons for undertaking a systematic and objective review of research on this topic. Since the main goal of carbon pricing is changing choices by firms and consumers that affect carbon emissions, we also point the reader towards recent evidence for the broader effectiveness of carbon pricing.