How can we improve air pollution? Try increasing trust first

Arbeitspapier

Environmental policies are characterized by salient short-term costs and long-term benefits that are difficult to observe and to attribute to the government's efforts. These characteristics imply that citizens' support for environmental policies is highly dependent on their trust in the government's capability to implement solutions and commitment to investments in those policies. Using novel survey data from Mexico City, we show that trust in the government is positively correlated with citizens' willingness to support an additional tax approximately equal to a days minimum wage to improve air quality and greater preference for government retention of revenues from fees collected from polluting firms. We find similar correlations using the perceived quality of public goods as a measure of government competence. These results provide evidence that mistrust can be an obstacle to better environmental outcomes.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IDB Working Paper Series ; No. IDB-WP-1208

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling ; Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects ; Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth ; Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies ; Public Goods ; Publicly Provided Private Goods
• Subject: Air pollution ; Trust ; Public services quality ; Taxes ; Public goods ; Publicly provided private goods ; Mexico

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Cafferata, Fernando G. ; Hoffmann, Bridget ; Scartascini, Carlos G.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
• (where): Washington, DC
• (when): 2021

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.18235/0003453
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/237489
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET