Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 24th Aug 2026, 01:49:04am WEST
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Daily Overview |
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Egg-Timer: Political Economy of Climate Policy Location: D-112 Session Chair: Selina Schön, ETH Zurich | |
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Workers’ Perceptions of the Energy Transition. A Survey Experiment in the US and Italy. 1: RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment, Italy; 2: Stanford University; 3: IMF; 4: Princeton University; 5: Bocconi University Social acceptance of decarbonization depends not only on distributional outcomes but also on workers’ understanding of the transition and its perceived implications for jobs, skills, and employment security. This study examines workers’ knowledge and beliefs about the energy transition and whether correcting misperceptions alters policy preferences. We fielded an online survey experiment with roughly 3,000 employed adults in Italy and the United States. Respondents first provided their views on the transition’s meaning, labor-market impacts, and worker policies, then were randomly assigned to a control group or to a treatment presenting OECD projections showing that overall employment remains stable under an accelerated transition. We document substantial knowledge gaps and pessimism about job losses, particularly regarding own occupations and local labor markets. On average, providing aggregate employment information does not significantly affect support for decarbonization policies, willingness to sign pro-transition petitions, or prioritization of worker protection over climate action in either country. However, the information treatment does affect labor-market beliefs in Italy. Treated respondents revise downward expected wages in their own occupation and perceived job security in outside options. Moreover, the treatment narrows belief dispersion across workers with different priors: optimistic workers become less confident in regional job creation, while pessimistic workers become more optimistic, leaving average expectations unchanged. These findings suggest that aggregate employment information alone is insufficient to shift climate policy support, but it meaningfully reshapes workers’ expectations about the distribution and location of labor-market adjustment during the energy transition. | |