Together or Alone: EU Citizens' Preferences for a Common Green Industrial Policy

With the rising need to both mitigate emissions and adapt to the consequences of climate change, international financing of climate investments has become increasingly important. This is true not just at the global level, but also within the European Union (EU). While the European Green Deal has set ambitious mitigation targets, EU-level financing for green industrial policy and climate adaptation remains limited and underdeveloped. Given substantial differences in funding needs and fiscal capacities across member states, effective EU-level policy requires redistributive EU-level financing. In this paper, we examine the conditions under which EU citizens support such redistributive financing. Combining climate policy scholarship with the literature on economic deservingness and the study of stereotypes, we argue that economic stereotypes shape EU citizens' preferences on redistribution in the climate context. Accordingly, positive stereotypes are expected to increase support for redistributive climate finance, while negative stereotypes should reduce it. To test these expectations, we field a survey experiment in Germany, Italy, Romania, and Sweden, combining vignette and conjoint designs to explore how stereotypes influence attitudes toward EU-level climate redistribution. Our study offers (to our knowledge) the first causal evidence that economic stereotypes—and their links to perceived responsibility and deservingness—systematically shape support for EU-level climate redistribution.