Perceived carbon pricing effectiveness impacts its perceived fairness – Applying and extending a theoretical framework

Based on a theoretical framework inspired by the Greed-Efficiency-Fairness-Hypothesis (GEF), it is argued that perceived effectiveness of climate policies, in addition to other policy beliefs (i.e. perceived personal and distributional consequences), influences perceived overall policy fairness and acceptance. However, links between these policy beliefs and perceived overall fairness as well as whether perceived overall fairness might mediate effects of these beliefs on acceptance remains understudied. This study addresses these gaps and extends the GEF-inspired framework: We add procedural fairness to the list of fairness-relevant beliefs and analyze whether perceived overall carbon pricing fairness integrates and mediates their effect on acceptance, using survey data representative of Germany (n = 4646). Additionally, we test whether adherence to the polluter-pays principle (a general fairness principle) moderates the effects of perceived distributional consequences and effectiveness on perceived overall fairness. Results showed that perceived personal consequences, distributional consequences, procedural fairness, as well as perceived effectiveness, all impact perceived overall fairness, and that the latter (partially) mediates their effects on carbon pricing acceptance. We also find weak evidence that the impact of perceived effectiveness and negative distributional consequences on perceived overall fairness is greater for polluter-pays adherents than for non-adherents. These results suggest that, additionally to perceived personal and distributional consequences as well as fair procedures, perceiving a policy to be effective increases its perceived overall fairness.