International Attitudes Toward Global Policies

We document majority support for policies entailing global redistribution and climate mitigation. Recent surveys on 40,680 respondents in 20 countries covering 72% of global carbon emissions show strong support for an effective way to jointly combat climate change and poverty: a global carbon price funding a global basic income, called the “Global Climate Scheme†(GCS). Using complementary surveys on 8,000 respondents in the U.S., France, Germany, Spain, and the UK, we test several hypotheses that could reconcile strong stated support with a lack of salience in policy circles. A list experiment shows no evidence of social desirability bias, majorities are willing to sign a real-stake petition, and global redistribution ranks high in the prioritization of policies. Conjoint analyses reveal that a platform is more likely to be preferred if it contains the GCS or a global tax on millionaires. Universalistic attitudes are confirmed by an incentivized donation. In sum, our findings indicate that global policies are genuinely supported by a majority of the population. Public opinion is therefore not the reason that they do not prominently enter political debates.