Research
Fairness, effectiveness, and public acceptability of climate policy, with a focus on carbon pricing and consumer-facing decarbonisation.
Working papers
Prices vs. Quantities from a Citizen's Perspective
We develop a theory of public appraisal to explain why similar carbon pricing instruments meet with different levels of public support. In a survey experiment with more than 13,000 respondents across seven European countries, we find that designing carbon pricing as "emissions trading" rather than "carbon taxation" reduces opposition in most countries, largely because taxes are more consistently perceived as costly. The results suggest citizens read taxes as the "tougher" instrument, and that emissions trading may be the more persuasive framing for constituencies not already inclined to support climate policy.
Ready To Switch? Fairness Implications from Heterogeneous Access to Climate-Friendly Substitutes
This paper develops and discusses "equal opportunity to decarbonize" as a fairness criterion for climate policy, discussing how unequal access to climate-friendly substitutes will shape both the distributional incidence and political economy of the transition in consumer-facing sectors.
This paper won a "Best Paper Award" at the Behavioural Environmental Economics and Policy (BEEP) Workshop at King's College London in September 2026.
Selected work in progress
Responsibility-Sensitive Fairness and Carbon Pricing Rebates
Peer-reviewed publications
Supporting carbon pricing when interest rates are higher
Survey data from across France, Germany and Spain confirms that citizens are more likely to accept consumer-facing carbon pricing when the proceeds are reinvested in green spending. As higher interest rates have made capital-intensive green substitutes harder to afford, this comment argues that the political success of carbon pricing will increasingly depend on policy design that helps consumers actually switch.
Meat taxes in Europe can be designed to avoid overburdening low-income consumers
This paper compares the distributional effects of different meat tax designs and revenue-recycling schemes across a large sample of European countries. Uncompensated meat taxes turn out to be only mildly regressive, and recycling the revenue through equal per-person payments can offset or reverse that effect in most cases, though using the revenue to cut taxes on fruit and vegetables only partially does so.
Toward optimal meat pricing: is it time to tax meat consumption?
This review examines the case for taxing meat consumption as a second-best way to address the environmental, health, and animal-welfare costs of livestock production. Drawing on public, behavioural, and welfare economics, it concludes that meat is significantly underpriced relative to its true social costs and outlines directions for future research on meat taxation.
Five Lessons from COVID-19 for Advancing Climate Change Mitigation
Drawing parallels between the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, this paper distills five lessons for climate mitigation policy: delay is costly, policy design must account for behavioural biases, inequality can worsen without timely action, global problems require multiple forms of international cooperation, and transparency about underlying value judgements is essential.
Dissertation
Prices and Perceptions — The Behavioural Political Economy of Climate Policy