Demand for Environmental Goods: Evidence from Voting Patterns on California Initiatives

This article studies voting behavior on 16 environmental ballot propositions in California in order to characterize the demand for environmental goods. The environment is found to be a normal good for people with mean incomes, but some environmental goods are inferior for those with high incomes, at least when supplied collectively. An important “price” of environmental goods is reduced income in the construction, farming, forestry, and manufacturing industries. Income and price can explain most of the variation in voting; there is little need to introduce “preference” variables such as political ideology.