15: Determinants of People's Acceptability of Pricing Measures – Replication and Extension of a Causal Model

The focus of this study lies on the so-called social feasibility of policy measures, and the closely related political feasibility. They belong to the major issues in contemporary transport policy debates. Ongoing growth in road transport poses severe threats to our social and ecological environments (e.g. Verhoef, 1994). Transport economists have traditionally confined themselves to the advocacy of pricing solutions to such market failures in transport. Building on the insights of Pigou (1920), they have demonstrated the efficient properties of marginal cost pricing in the regulation of externalities. However, pricing solutions do not receive strong public or political support. Various attitude surveys toward road user charging (e.g. Jones, 1991; LEX, 1999; Schlag and Teubel, 1997; Taylor and Brook, 1998; Thorpe, Hills and Jaensirisak, 2000; Schade and Schlag, 2000) show that public acceptability is quite low and does not seem to have increased over time. Why do neither policy makers nor the greater public embrace the ‘obviously correct’ solution to externality regulation that economists offered? Yet a short talk with ‘ordinary’ people makes clear that for them pricing policies are strongly related with fairness and justice, and that most people view such policies as unfair. The work of Ittner, Becker and Kals (2003, this volume) provides strong empirical evidence for the importance of these justice related cognitions and emotions for people's acceptability of coerced policies. But what factors influence people's perceived justice of a policy? Ittner et al. (2003, this volume) view the perceived effectiveness of a measure in solving a problem, as well as the compulsory nature of the measure, as main determinants of perceived justice. Schade (2003, this volume) views information about and perception of traffic related problems as a necessary precondition for the acceptability of road pricing measures. Furthermore, social norms prevailing in a group or society may also influence the perceived justice of a measure (Schade, this volume). In this way empirical research has already identified important determinants of people's acceptability of coercive transport policies. However, a central research deficit consists of the still small knowledge concerning the causal relationship between these various determinants of acceptability. Schade (this volume) presents such a model but it is rather complex and he provides no direct empirical test of the assumed causal relations. Instead he, as most researchers in this field, applies simple regression models, in which all constructs are used as direct predictors of acceptability (see also Ittner et al., and Steg, 2003, both this volume).