Power Plants and the Color of Money: Voters Form NIMBY Attitudes Based On Economic Factors, Not Racial Signals

For decades, scholars have documented socioeconomic inequities in the siting of power plants. The trouble with these existing observational studies is that while they demonstrate patterns, they lack causal power. I evaluate one possible causal mechanism, the opinion of voters, through a large survey experiment that is the first to evaluate the impact that community race and income have on public opinion and the first to evaluate drivers of public opinion towards power plants in communities other than their own. I show that voters hold strongly NIMBY attitudes towards power plants, being 30% more supportive of a plant’s construction in communities other than their own. I also show that they form those attitudes based on economic factors (plant externalities, site suitability, and community income) rather than racial bias. By illustrating the causal mechanism underlying socioeconomic inequities, I advance the literature on environmental justice and climate politics, demonstrating how actors can reinforce socioeconomic inequities by following economic incentives rooted in discrimination without themselves taking discriminatory actions.