In many countries, carbon pricing policies have not been implemented to the extent
advocated by economists, partly due to fears of consumers’ and voters’ backlash. In
this study, we conduct an online survey experiment with a representative sample of
U.S. adults (N = 2,685) to investigate the determinants of support for carbon pricing
policies. In particular, we focus on the roles of perceived social norms about climate
action as well as reasoning about the economic mechanisms and impacts of carbon
pricing. Our results show that both social norms and economic reasoning play an
important role in determining public support for (climate) policies. Providing information
through video interventions on either of these two aspects increases stated
policy support for carbon pricing by around 5 percentage points, with the effect being
concentrated among Democrats and Independents. We find no effects of information
on donations to environmental charities. In a follow-up survey 4 months after the
intervention, we show that our treatment effects have mostly dissipated. One-shot
information provision can thus help start a conversation, but it may take more to
overcome the deeply entrenched opposition and foster persistent engagement.