Thomas Bernauer

Last Name

Bernauer

First Name

Thomas

ORCID

0000-0002-3775-6245

Organisational unit

03446 - Bernauer, Thomas / Bernauer, Thomas

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Publications 1 - 10 of 117

Do citizens provide political rewards to firms engaging in voluntary environmental action?
Kolcava, Dennis; Scholderer, Joachim; Bernauer, Thomas (2021)
Journal of Cleaner Production
Existing research offers a nuanced understanding of the conditions under which firms can gain a competitive advantage through environmental business conduct. However, we know quite little about whether such action can also generate benefits for firms induced by political action, such as benefits associated with public procurement, (softer) regulatory enforcement and corporate tax breaks. We argue that citizens are more likely to support such rewards for firms that have a stronger record of environmental business conduct, express stronger commitment to future environmental action and submit such action to independent audits. The empirical analysis focuses on vehicle emissions reduction by car producers and plastic waste reduction by retailers. Choice experiments with 6726 respondents from Germany and the United States support these arguments. Our findings are surprisingly consistent across two different sociocultural and political contexts (Germany, USA), two different environmental policy domains (vehicle emissions, plastic waste) and three forms of political rewards. Whereas studies focusing on narrowly defined economic benefits (competitiveness) of environmental business conduct have become somewhat more sceptical about the magnitude and scope of such benefits, our results provide more room for optimism by pointing to other types of benefits of corporate environmental action.
Einführung in die Politikwissenschaft
Bernauer, Thomas; Jahn, Detlef; Kritzinger, Sylvia; et al. (2022)
Studienkurs Politikwissenschaft
Tempo 30 in Schweizer Städten? Was möchte die Schweizer Wohnbevölkerung
Stapper, Lea; Bernauer, Thomas (2024)
Trade policy announcements can increase price volatility in global food commodity markets
Brander, Michael; Bernauer, Thomas; Huss, Matthias (2023)
Nature Food
Many countries use trade policy to insulate their domestic markets from price volatility. However, there is a widespread concern that such policies—particularly export restrictions—may amplify global price volatility, adversely affecting other countries. Here, using an original dataset on trade policy announcements on wheat and maize encompassing the food price crises of 2007–2008 and 2010–2011, we show that the announcement of trade policy changes can increase global price volatility. This effect applies not only to export restrictions but also to import liberalization measures and is most pronounced when markets are tight (stocks are low). Policymakers should work towards increasing stock levels to mitigate price volatility effects of trade policy changes. When markets are tight, export restrictions and import liberalizations should be avoided.
Ratification of multilateral environmental agreements: Civil society access to international institutions
Koubi, Vassiliki; Mohrenberg, Steffen; Bernauer, Thomas (2020)
Journal of Civil Society
The stage in which countries formally decide on whether to participate in (i.e., ratify) international agreements is crucial to global governance efforts. The reason is that, by and large, international agreements with greater participation are more likely to contribute to effective problem solving. We study the role procedural design characteristics of agreements play in such decisions. Specifically, we examine whether treaties’ provisions allowing non-state actors to participate in treaty making, which is widely regarded as an important procedural aspect of governance, increases the likelihood of ratification. Our empirical testing relies on a new time-series-cross-sectional dataset that includes information on the ratification behaviour of 154 countries with respect to 178 multilateral environmental agreements in 1950–2011. We find that treaty provisions allowing for greater non-state actor access to the meetings of the parties indeed increase the likelihood of treaty ratification. The result is robust to controlling for the effects of various other treaty design characteristics and country characteristics on ratification behaviour. The main policy implication is that, despite occasional debate over drawbacks of involvement of non-state actors, the latter tends to support global environmental governance efforts and should be further enhanced.
Explaining government choices for promoting renewable energy
Schaffer, Lena Maria; Bernauer, Thomas (2014)
Energy Policy
Many advanced industrialized countries have, in recent years, experienced a significant expansion of electricity production from renewables. Yet we know quite little about the dynamics of the underlying policychoices in this area. Using new data on adoptions and changes in feed-in tariff and green certificate schemes in 26 advanced industrialized countries over 20 years, we examine both domestic driving forces as well as international determinants. The findings suggest that three factors play a particularly important role in pushing countries towards market-based support systems: characteristics of the existing energy supply system, a federalist structure of the political system, and EU membership. Particularly noteworthy is the finding that higher shares of fossil and nuclear energy in the national energy supply as well as higher CO2 intensity of the economy do not, as we had expected, stand in the way of policies for supporting renewables in electricity production. To the contrary, they increase the likelihood of a country adopting such policies. We also find, however, that higher economic growth and higher growth in solar and wind energy capacity tend to reduce the political appetite for reforms of existing schemes.
Schweizer Umweltpanel. Zweite Erhebungswelle: Klima
Rudolph, Lukas; Quoß, Franziska; Müller, Klara; et al. (2020)
Choosing to protect: public support for flood defense over relocation in climate change adaptation
Freihardt, Jan; Buntaine, Mark; Bernauer, Thomas (2024)
Environmental Research Letters
Policy makers worldwide face tough choices over how to prioritize public funding for adaptation to climate change. One particularly difficult choice is whether to opt for policies that promote relocation away from flood risks or infrastructure investments that protect against flooding. Local communities commonly prefer protective infrastructure, but it is less obvious that the general public will support this approach due to the growing costs. We study public opinion on these adaptation approaches using a choice experiment with nationally representative samples in the United States and Germany (n = 2400 each). We asked participants to prioritize federal funding between two hypothetical, equally sized communities differing in their adaptation strategy, flood frequency, lives and economic assets at risk, economic vitality, geographic distance, and political orientation. In both countries, we find surprisingly strong support for protective infrastructure over relocation policies among the general public, even under conditions where relocation could be an attractive alternative for addressing the growing costs of protective infrastructure and rebuilding efforts.
Protecting the environment at home or abroad?
Presberger, David; Kolcava, Dennis; Bernauer, Thomas (2024)
Environmental Research Letters
By importing goods whose production affects the environment abroad, wealthy countries are 'offshoring' a large share of their total environmental footprint of consumption to less affluent societies. We argue that current efforts to mitigate this problem, which focus largely on informational policy instruments for global supply chains, could result in unintended side effects. The reason pertains to a potential tradeoff between a home bias in consumption and the geographic allocation of environmental impacts. We develop a theoretical argument on how consumers may respond when they prefer a domestically produced good but are made aware that this results in more environmental damage at home, compared to importing the same product from abroad. Based on choice experiments in Germany, Japan, and the United States, we observe that information provision can reduce consumer demand for environmentally harmful products, but also find some support for environmental NIMBYism when environmental and provenance information are combined. The key implication of this finding is that policymakers should address potentially unintended side-effects of more stringent informational requirements for global supply chains.
"How much should public transport services be expanded, and who should pay? Experimental evidence from Switzerland”
Lichtin, Florian Maurus; Smith, E. Keith; Axhausen, Kay W.; et al. (2024)
Transport Policy
The twin challenge of increasing capacity to accommodate growing travel demand while simultaneously decarbonizing the transport sector places enormous pressure on public transport (PT) systems globally. Arguably the most fundamental policy choice and trade-off in designing and operating PT systems in the coming years will be service levels versus cost implications. On the presumption that public (citizen and consumer) opinion is crucial to making such choices, we study this question with a focus on Switzerland by using a factorial experiment (n = 1’634) that considers the frequency and geographic coverage of PT services as well as the cost implications for PT users and taxpayers. We find that support for increased frequency of connections and more services to peripheral regions is high as long as such service expansion is funded mainly by the government, rather than PT users. Preferences are generally consistent across subgroups, except in the case of government funding, where preferences differ by political orientation. This suggests that there is substantial demand across the board for PT services expansion funded primarily by the government, but that the question of funding is also potentially politically the most controversial. While our findings are specific to a country with a highly developed PT system, our research provides a template for similar research in other countries that struggle with a similar challenge.

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