The impact of politicized and costly climate policies on trust in scientific information and policy support

Fredrik Carlsson, Mitesh Kataria () and Elina Lampi ()
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Mitesh Kataria: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: P.O. Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG, Sweden, http://www.economics.gu.se
Elina Lampi: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: P.O. Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG, Sweden, http://www.economics.gu.se

No 856, Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

Abstract: We investigate how politicization and the financial cost of climate policies influence public trust in scientific information about climate change. We find that citizens' trust in science-based information on climate is influenced by its political context. When climate policy is associated with a political affiliation, trust in the scientific information decreases, independent of the political party supporting the policy. However, there is no effect on policy support on political endorsement. Varying the financial cost of the policy to induce cognitive dissonance had no significant effect on trust in the scientific information; instead, as expected, higher cost substantially reduced policy support.

Keywords: Experiment; climate change; scientific information; political parties; motivated beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 Q54 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2025-08-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-pol, nep-res and nep-soc
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