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In a field experiment with 341 participants, we study whether social comparisons, either in isolation or in combination with a climate-related moral appeal, can change the use of public and car-related transportation. We do so in the context of a mobility budget offered to employees of a large German company as an alternative to a company car. The budget can be used to pay for both leisure and commuting trips, and for various modes of transport. Behavioral interventions in this setting are of particular interest, since companies are constrained to significantly alter financial benefits to employees yet strive to lower carbon emissions via a shift to low-emission transport modes. We find strong evidence for a reduction in car-related mobility in response to the combined treatment, driven by reduced expenditures for taxi and UBER rides. This is accompanied by substitution towards micromobility, but not towards public transport. Furthermore, we do not find any effects of the social comparison alone. Our results demonstrate that norm-based nudges are able to change transportation behavior, at least temporarily.

International carbon markets are frequently propagated as an efficient instrument for reducing CO2 emissions. We argue that such markets, despite their desirable efficiency properties, might not be in the best interest of governments who are guided by strategic considerations in negotiations. We identify the circumstances under which governments benefit or are harmed by cooperation in the form of an international market. Our results challenge the conventional wisdom that an international market is most beneficial for participating countries when they have vastly diverging marginal abatement costs; rather, it may be more promising to negotiate agreements with non-tradable emissions caps.

We use car-level micro data to provide empirical evidence on the usage of conventional and electric vehicles (EVs) in private and car sharing fleets in Germany. We shed light on both monetary and non-monetary barriers to EV adoption and usage by exploiting the feature that variable costs are identical for shared vehicles but different for private car owners across engine types. While drivers respond to monetary incentives when using conventional cars, this does not hold for EVs. We find that EVs are, on average, driven shorter distances than conventional vehicles, both in terms of annual and single-day mileage, even if costs are identical. We also document that car sharing intensifies the usage of conventional cars but not that of EVs.

In der aktuellen verkehrspolitischen Debatte zur innerstädtischen Schadstoffbelastung sowie zu Tempolimits auf Autobahnen werden zwischen den Befürwortern einer entsprechenden Maßnahme und deren Gegnern vielfach Argumente ausgetauscht, die einen evidenzbasierten, auf belastbaren Daten und nachweisbaren Fakten beruhenden Beleg schuldig bleiben. Dies führt zu einer zunehmenden Verhärtung der Fronten und ist der politischen Debatte nicht zuträglich. Debattenübergreifend fallen zwei Aspekte besonders auf: Erstens wird versäumt, der interessierten Öffentlichkeit zu erklären, wie empirische Evidenz zur Beantwortung der obigen Fragestellungen zustande kommt, insbesondere wie sich ein kausaler Zusammenhang zwischen einer geplanten Maßnahme (zum Beispiel Tempolimit) und einer Ergebnisgröße (zum Beispiel Unfallzahlen) stichhaltig identifizieren lässt. Zweitens ist die bisweilen sehr aufgeladene Debatte auf wenige Dimensionen verkürzt und verhindert somit eine umfassende Bewertung und Abwägung gesellschaftlicher Kosten und den Nutzen möglicher Maßnahmen. Das vorliegende ZEW policy brief spricht sich dafür aus, sich bei der Bewertung geplanter Maßnahmen und Grenzwerte sorgsamer und differenzierter mit kausalen Wirkungszusammenhängen auseinanderzusetzen sowie dafür, weitere gesellschaftlich relevante Indikatoren zu berücksichtigen.

Die Wirkungskanäle von Lobbyismus sind vielfältig und – zumindest in der Theorie – weitgehend bekannt. Jedoch gibt es nur wenig empirische Evidenz hinsichtlich der Wahrnehmung von Lobbyismus in der Bevölkerung. Vor diesem Hintergrund hat das ZEW – Leibniz-Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung gemeinsam mit der Universität Mannheim eine repräsentative Umfrage in Deutschland durchgeführt. Das Haupter-gebnis: Die große Mehrheit der Bevölkerung sieht nicht nur einen enormen Einfluss von Lobbygruppen auf die nationale und die in Brüssel gemachte Politik (EU-Politik), sondern steht diesem Einfluss auch sehr ablehnend gegenüber.

Die Wirkungskanäle von Lobbyismus sind vielfältig und – zumindest in der Theorie – weitgehend bekannt. Jedoch gibt es nur wenig empirische Evidenz hinsichtlich der Wahrnehmung von Lobbyismus in der Bevölkerung. Vor diesem Hintergrund hat das ZEW – Leibniz-Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung gemeinsam mit der Universität Mannheim eine repräsentative Umfrage in Deutschland durchgeführt. Das Haupter-gebnis: Die große Mehrheit der Bevölkerung sieht nicht nur einen enormen Einfluss von Lobbygruppen auf die nationale und die in Brüssel gemachte Politik (EU-Politik), sondern steht diesem Einfluss auch sehr ablehnend gegenüber.

We show that limited attention and present bias contribute to low levels of exercise. First, in a large randomized experiment, we find that email reminders increase gym visits by 13 % and that they benefit nearly all types of individuals. Limited attention can explain these effects. Second, using a novel dataset, we find that many bookings for gym classes are canceled, and that bookings are made even for classes that never have a waiting list. Comparing these findings to the predictions of a dynamic discrete choice model, we conclude that many gym members use bookings to commit themselves to future attendance. JEL-code: C93, D91, I12

This paper demonstrates that unintended effects of climate policies (Green Paradox effects) also arise in general equilibrium when countries compete for mobile factors of production (capital and resources/energy). Second, it shows that countries have a rationale to use strictly positive source-based capital taxes to slow down resource extraction. Notably, this result comes about in the absence of any revenue requirements by the government, and independently of the elasticity of substitution between capital and resources in production. Third, the paper generalizes the results obtained by Eichner and Runkel (2012) by showing that the Nash equilibrium entails inefficiently high pollution. JEL: E22, H23, H77, Q31, Q58

In this paper, we acknowledge that the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change have differential fiscal impacts. Whereas mitigation typically raises fiscal revenues, adaptation is costly to the taxpayer and to a greater extent the more distortionary the tax system is. In an OLG model with majority voting, we analyze how the choices of mitigation and adaptation are distorted under a lump-sum and a distortionary income tax regime. We find that whenever emissions and adaptation exhibit stock characteristics, the levels of mitigation and adaptation are chosen inefficiently low in the political equilibrium under lump-sum taxation. By contrast, the political equilibrium may entail inefficiently high mitigation or inefficiently high adaptation (but not both simultaneously) if the tax system is distortionary. A calibration of our model to the German economy shows that both mitigation and adaptation can be expected to be inefficiently low in the political equilibrium. Furthermore, the standard assumption of a lump-sum tax system when analyzing mitigation and adaptation is found to underestimate the loss in utilitarian welfare relative to a distortionary tax system, although mitigation levels are generally higher under the latter regime.

We analyze a principal-agent relationship in the context of international climate policy in a two-country framework. First, the principals of both countries decide whether to link their domestic emission permit markets to an international market. Second, the principals select agents who then non-cooperatively determine the levels of emission permits. Finally, these permits are traded on domestic or international permit markets. We find that the principals in both countries have an incentive to select agents that care (weakly) less for environmental damages than the principals do themselves. This incentive is more pronounced under international permit markets, particularly for permit sellers, rendering an international market less beneficial to at least one country. Our results may explain why we do not observe international permit markets despite their seemingly favorable characteristics and, more generally, suggest that treating countries as atomistic players may be an oversimplifying assumption when analyzing strategic behavior in international policy making. JEL: D72, H23, H41, Q54, Q58

We analyze the German ecotax package in a model of overlapping generations and majority voting. The package consists of the ecotax rate and the budgetary rule which assigns a fraction of the tax revenue to the reduction of pension contributions while holding pension benefits constant. The old and the young generation have different preferences with respect to the tax rate and the use of the tax revenue. Our theoretical model as well as the calibration of our model show that the median voter s preferred tax rate may well exceed the efficient tax rate whenever his income is sufficiently high. This is the likelier the more CO2 is degraded and removed from the atmosphere. Furthermore, the median voter prefers earmarking of tax revenue to reductions in pension contributions. The latter is quite an accurate prediction of the situation in Germany where the share of tax revenue devoted to the pension scheme amounts to more than 90%.