Speaker
Description
Reducing meat consumption, particularly beef, is a widely recognized solution to climate change, given that the global food system is responsible for 26% - 34% of total GHG emissions, with livestock and fish production responsible for around 30% of these emissions. In this light, policy instruments aimed at changing consumer behavior to reduce meat consumption or shift towards plant-based have received increasing attention. Such instruments may involve hard regulation, market-based instruments and information-based instruments, and in reality often policy mixes containing elements of these different policy types are implemented. Among market-based instruments, a climate meat tax on consumer products is considered one of the most effective policies. Other policy instruments such as subsidies on vegetables and fruits or subsidies on plant-based proteins are also often considered. The effectiveness of such pricing policies crucially depends on the price sensitivity of consumers.
This study uses an experimental setting to test if price elasticities change under low and high Pigouvian tax scenarios. The unique experimental design also allows us to disentangle the price and non-price effects of meat taxation and its interaction with carbon labeling on the substitution between animal and plant proteins. We introduce an innovative choice experiment design that allows for choosing multiple products and quantities while providing participants with customized choice cards. We do so to imitate a more realistic scenario for household food consumption choices and hence reduce hypothetical bias. We conduct a survey experiment on a representative sample of 2088 Dutch households and analyze the data using Multiple Discrete-Continous Extreme Value (MDCEV) models.
Our findings indicate that meat consumption is price elastic, while price elasticities linearly increase in response to larger price changes of meat. However, we do not observe a corresponding substitution towards plant-based meat substitutes. Messages on tax framing and revenue redistribution do not generate additional behavioral shifts or backfire. Moreover, we find no significant effects of carbon labeling on behavior change, nor any significant interaction effects between taxation and labeling.
| Keywords | Discrete continuous choice experiment, consumer protein demand, meat taxes, tax framing, carbon labelscarbon labels |
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| Status of your work | Finished work |
| Early Career Researcher Award | Yes, the paper is eligible |
