Public demand is supposed to be a central element of democratic policy making. However, only little research exists on what shapes public demand over time. For the case of climate change policy, which is often assumed to be a luxury good, the proposed paper establishes a relationship between business cycles and the demand for climate policy. A countercyclical relationship between economic development and public demand for climate protection is hypothesized given that climate protection is a superior good; during economic booms, public demand for climate protection should be high and vice versa during recessions.
The paper uses a data from Google Trends on search request for 23 OECD countries from 2004 to 2012 that allows for a dynamic analysis in the short to medium run which sets it apart from previous research. Quarterly data on economic proxies is used to test the hypothesis. Preliminary results show that frequencies of searches on “global warming” and “climate change” vary with the stages of the business cycle.
