Mcneil, Andrew;
Barnes, Lucy;
(2025)
The environment-economic growth trade-off: does support for environmental protection depend on its economic consequences?
Ecological Economics
, 230
, Article 108522. 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108522.
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Abstract
Belief in a trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection is an important feature of the politics of environmental policy. Yet the prevalence and consequences – for policy positions – of this belief are only indirectly examined in dominant treatments of public attitudes. We investigate belief in the existence of the trade-off directly. Those who believe more strongly in the trade-off express more moderate policy views. However, increasing belief in the existence of the trade-off via experimental manipulation yields null effects on policy positions. Appealing to the trade-off to justify prioritising growth may not provide a logical defense in the eyes of the public.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The environment-economic growth trade-off: does support for environmental protection depend on its economic consequences? |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108522 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108522 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Public opinion, Economic Growth, Political debate, Environmental sustainability, Climate change mitigation policy |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Political Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10219225 |
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