Does climate change concern alter tax morale preferences? Evidence from an Italian survey

Alessandro Cascavilla

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Given the increasing relevance of sustainability debates, this paper investigates the relationship between the climate change concern and the willingness to pay an environmental tax, considering the interplay with the general level of individual tax morale. By employing a survey among Italian economics students, we show that the climate change concern affects the attitude towards paying an environmental tax both directly and indirectly, via a change in the preferences between the general and the specific tax morale. We find that also tax immoral subjects are significantly willing to pay an environmental tax as their awareness of climate change increases. Given the goal to increase the public acceptance of an environmental tax, we provide three main policy implications: i) carry on campaigns to increase the general level of tax morale, following the guidelines given by the OECD (2019); ii) raise the climate change awareness among people, for instance through investments in sensibilization campaigns on environmental-related topics; iii) increase awareness about climate change in particular among individuals who show lower attitude towards paying taxes. The evidence about an inconsistent tax preference made us recommend a policy addressed to a specific target group rather than to individuals and based on non-monetary incentives, such as nudging and moral suasion tools.

Keywords: Energy survey; Carbon tax; Climate change; Tax evasion and avoidance; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 Q40 Q50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-ene, nep-env, nep-iue, nep-pub and nep-res
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