Public acceptability of carbon taxation depends on its revenue use. Which single or mixed revenue use is most appropriate, and which perceptions of policy effectiveness and fairness explain this, remains unclear. It is, moreover, uncertain how people’s prior knowledge about carbon taxation affects policy acceptability. Here we conduct a survey experiment to test how distinct revenue uses, prior knowledge, and information provision about the functioning of carbon taxation affect policy perceptions and acceptability. We show that spending revenues on climate projects maximises acceptability as well as perceived fairness and effectiveness. A mix of different revenue uses is also popular, notably compensating low-income households and funding climate projects. In addition, we find that providing information about carbon taxation increases acceptability for unspecified revenue use and for people with more prior tax knowledge. Furthermore, policy acceptability is more strongly related to perceived fairness than to perceived effectiveness.

公众对碳税的接受程度取决于其收入用途。哪种单一或混合收入用途最合适，以及对政策有效性和公平性的哪些看法可以解释这一点，尚不清楚。此外，不确定人们对碳税的先验知识如何影响政策的可接受性。在这里，我们进行了一项调查实验，以测试有关碳税功能的不同收入用途、先验知识和信息提供如何影响政策认知和可接受性。我们表明，在气候项目上的支出收入可以最大限度地提高可接受性以及感知的公平性和有效性。不同收入用途的混合也很受欢迎，特别是补偿低收入家庭和资助气候项目。此外，我们发现，提供有关碳税的信息可以提高未指定收入用途和具有更多税收知识的人的可接受性。此外，政策可接受性与感知公平性的相关性比与感知有效性的相关性更强。