Almost half of US citizens doubt the reality of human-made climate change, and this share has remained stable over the last three decades. This paper argues that the roots of this denial are, in part, to be found in the economic histories of communities.
- Speaker
- Date
- Friday 31 May 2024, 11:30 - 12:45
- Type
- Seminar
- Room
- T3-14
- Building
- Mandeville Building
Using data on 3.6 million oil and gas wells drilled between 1859 and 2022, I show that long-term exposure to fossil fuel extraction negatively impacts present levels of climate change beliefs — independent of present production and employment.
These effects are neither driven by ideological bundling of beliefs, nor by selective migration. Instead, building on archival and, in particular, historical local newspapers data, I document the development of persistent fossil fuel identities, built notably by the public good provision of extractive firms, and show how they interacted with the formation of beliefs, suggesting the importance of economic identities in shaping past and present political attitudes.
About the speaker
Edgard is a Prize Fellow in Economics at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, after defending his PhD thesis at Sciences Po Paris in 2023. Between 2020 and 2023, he was a visiting fellow at Harvard University. His research explores issues at the crossroad of Political Economy and Economic History.
Registration
If you would like to join for dinner on Thursday evening, or book a bilateral or join for lunch on Friday, please send an email to boring@ese.eur.nl.
