Title: Does future implementation increase public support of a soil conservation tax?

Authors: Gilles Grolleau; Naoufel Mzoughi

Addresses: SupAgro, UMR 1135 LAMETA, F-34060 Montpellier, France; Burgundy School of Business, LESSAC, F-21000 Dijon, France ' INRA Ecodéveloppement, CS 40509 - 84914 Avignon Cedex 9, France

Abstract: A recent behavioural economics literature argues that people are more likely to make 'should' choices rather than 'want' choices when the decision is scheduled in the future. We investigate this concern in the case of a soil conservation tax. Surveying both a convenience and randomly-selected samples of individuals in a French region suffering from soil degradation, we test whether the suggestion of a future implementation of a soil conservation tax increases public support, compared to an 'as-soon-as-possible' implementation. Our results show that scheduling the implementation in the future does not matter, since the support of the considered tax is similar in both samples, regardless of the time perspective of its implementation.

Keywords: future implementation; soil conservation taxes; want-should conflict; behavioural economics; France; soil degradation; public support; conservation taxation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJARGE.2015.069796

International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology, 2015 Vol.11 No.1, pp.92 - 101

Accepted: 01 May 2015
Published online: 11 Jun 2015 *

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