Micro-Motives for State and Local Climate Change Initiatives

Abstract:     
To date, the majority of states and at least hundreds of cities have adopted local climate change initiatives, while the federal government has been anything between passive about to hostile toward climate change issues. State and city climate change initiatives pose a puzzle: why do citizens and politicians support actions the costs of which will be borne locally and any potential benefits will be shared with any living being on the earth? In this Essay, we address this puzzle through an analysis of the potential incentives of supporters of local climate change initiatives. Our analysis indicates that some of the support stems from informed, utility maximizing decisions and some is derived from various biases that affect individual decisionmaking. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that state and city climate change initiatives could affect incentives of elected and non-elected federal officials in ways that could lead to effective federal action on climate change.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 19

Keywords: Environmental Law, Political Economy, Federalism, Climate Change

JEL Classification: D73, K23, P26, Q2

Accepted Paper Series