What’s in for us? Promoting support for energy transition policies through co-benefit narratives and moral universalism

Last registered on August 07, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
What’s in for us? Promoting support for energy transition policies through co-benefit narratives and moral universalism
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012860
Initial registration date
July 29, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
August 06, 2024, 10:56 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
August 07, 2024, 7:01 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
Germany
Region
Country
Spain
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Zarah Thiel
Affiliation
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Ivan Gonzalez-Gordon
PI Affiliation
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
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PI Name
Andreas Loeschel
PI Affiliation
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-07-29
End date
2024-08-13
Keywords
Environment & Energy
Additional Keywords
Narratives, Moral universalism, Co-benefits, Climate mitigation
JEL code(s)
O13, D83, H5, D91
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Addressing climate change requires international cooperation, widespread adoption of renewable energy (RE), and public support for the energy transition. While climate change mitigation is a global public good, investing in RE often yields local co-benefits like job creation, clean air, and enhanced energy security. Presently, developed countries account for a large share of global RE demand and technological knowledge, while many developing countries have favorable technical conditions for scaling RE.
Competing (economic) narratives exist on how to address global challenges like climate change, with varying perspectives on cooperation versus competition with other nations. This conceptually links to moral universalism in altruism: the extent to which people exhibit the same level of altruism towards strangers as towards in-group members, such as fellow citizens. Namely, altruism towards citizens from their own country vs. other countries (out-group) may be an important explanatory and moderator variable for the support of domestically vs. foreign-orientated RE policies.
This study bridges two recent strings of literature by jointly exploring the role of narratives and moral universalism in promoting policy support. Our information experiment with German and Spanish households investigates the effect of energy transition narratives, that vary the location of (domestic versus foreign) (i) RE investment and (ii) co-benefits, on the desired public spending for domestic and foreign RE policies. By further exploring heterogeneity by moral universalism, we contribute to the literature which suggests that narratives shape economic beliefs, actions and policy views, but cannot fully explain why some narratives have a stronger effect than others. Our study also provides the first experimental evidence of the role of causal narratives on policy support for climate change mitigation.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Thiel, Zarah, Ivan Gonzalez-Gordon and Andreas Loeschel. 2024. "What’s in for us? Promoting support for energy transition policies through co-benefit narratives and moral universalism." AEA RCT Registry. August 07. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12860-2.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Participants are randomly assigned to one out of five experimental groups, four of which are treatment variations and one is a control condition. Respondents in all conditions receive contextual information on the need to expand renewable energy to fight climate change. The control group receives no additional information. The four treatment groups are each provided with a different written energy transition narrative. These narratives are based on a 2x2 design (see experimental design). We apply lever narratives (Eliaz and Spiegler 2020; Kendall and Charles 2022), which include intermediate variables (mediators) in a causal story about how the respective investment decision translates to the co-benefit via these lever mechanisms.

Each narrative text is structured as follows:
-Headline with take-home message
-Overarching co-benefit (improved renewable energy supply)
-Mediators (scaling and learning effects)
-Paraphrased take-home message
Intervention Start Date
2024-07-29
Intervention End Date
2024-08-13

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our main outcome is relative policy demand for domestic and foreign renewable energy policies.
We plan to measure relative policy demand with a budget allocation task. Respondents will be asked to imagine that their federal government has a budget for renewable energy of 100 million euros per year which they can spend on three categories of renewable energy policies. We include three policies that differ in the orientation towards the respondent’s own country or developing countries. The three policies are (1) public funding for domestic renewable energy projects, (2) public funding for renewable energy projects in developing countries, conditional on energy trade agreements with these countries , (3) unconditional public funding for renewable energy projects in developing countries. Policy (3) is the most universalist.
Respondents are then asked to split the money between the three options as they would have their federal government assign the money between the three categories. All the money can be split between the three options or spent entirely on one category. In any case, the complete amount of 100 million euros must be used.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
As secondary outcome, we measure support for government spending on the three policies mentioned above on a scale from 0 (strongly oppose) to 10 (strongly support), including a disclaimer to remind participants that public funds are partly generated through tax contributions and that these limited funds must be allocated among renewable energy policies and many other policy areas. The purposes of this question are to capture if some respondents may oppose all renewable energy policies in question, especially when considering that the government funds could also be reallocated to other policy areas.
In addition, we elicit prior and posterior beliefs on the extent that the respondent’s country would benefit from investments in renewable energy (prior) or green hydrogen (posterior) in their own country and in developing countries, to study if respondents update their beliefs after receiving the information treatment. A number of additional post-treatment variables are elicited to descriptively investigate potential treatment mechanisms (e.g., perceptions on the mediators mentioned in the treatments).

Additional moderating variables:
Moreover, we elicit prior beliefs about climate change as a global challenge and its anthropogenic causes in the last decades. We also explore whether universalism in altruism and key demographic characteristics such as ethnicity, birthplace, migration background, among others, may moderate the treatment effects of both outcomes. Due to the structure of our experimental design and outcomes, both relating domestic versus foreign investments, we suspect these variables may play a role.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The transition narratives are based on a 2x2 factorial design which varies the level (own country versus developing country) of (i) required renewable energy investment and (ii) co-benefits resulting from the investment.
Experimental Design Details
The four treatment groups are:
Treatment group 1 (“Competitiveness narrative”): Investment in own country, large share of co-benefits in own country
Treatment group 2 (“Trickle down narrative”): Investment in own country, large share of co-benefits in developing countries
Treatment group 3 (“Impure altruism narrative”): Investment in developing countries, large share of co-benefits in own country
Treatment group 4 (“Pure altruism narrative”): Investment in developing countries, large share of co-benefits in developing countries
Randomization Method
Randomization done by survey software (LimeSurvey).
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
2 countries (Germany, Spain)
Sample size: planned number of observations
4,000 individuals (2,000 per country)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
In each country: 400 individuals in the control group, 400 in each of the four treatment conditions.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
German Association for Experimental Economic Research e.V.
IRB Approval Date
2024-05-23
IRB Approval Number
MNqbxZsu
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials