This paper examines the political difficulty of enacting welfare-enhancing environmental taxes. Using referenda in a market experiment with externalities, we investigate the effect of trial periods on the acceptability of two theoretically equivalent Pigouvian tax schemes. While implementing...

Tax-aversion reduces the likelihood that price rationing can be a politically viable tool for environmental protection. We examine the case of the classic Pigouvian tax to control a negative externality, and consider how recycling the revenues, labeling of the tax and information about its...

Experimental studies have compared cooperation across different nonmarket social dilemma settings, but the experimental literature has largely overlooked comparing cooperation across market and nonmarket settings. This paper reports the results from an experiment that compares behavior in...

We use an experimental market with externalities to test whether inequality aversion could help explain the popularity of earmarking tax revenues. We find that voter opposition is not fully explained by material self-interest: Results indicate that preferences for fairness influence voting...

We show in a public goods experiment on three continents that conditional cooperation is a universal behavioral regularity. Yet, the number of conditional cooperators and the extent of conditional cooperation are much higher in the United States than anywhere else.

In a best-shot public good, where the provision level is determined by the highest contribution instead of the sum of all contributions, there is potential for waste and underprovision due to coordination failure. These failures are exacerbated when agents are identical because there is no focal...

Economists and psychologists have long argued the origin of wealth influences individual behavior. In a previous study (Cherry et al., 2005), we found the origin of endowment did not significantly affect behavior in linear public good games with summation contribution technology. In such games,...

We show in a public goods experiment on three continents that conditional cooperation is a universal behavioral regularity. Yet, the number of conditional cooperators and the extent of conditional cooperation are much higher in the United States than anywhere else.

Large-scale deployment of low-carbon energy technologies is crucial to mitigating climate change, and public support is an important barrier to policies and projects that facilitate deployment. This paper provides insights to the origins of public opposition that can impede the adoption of...