Funding Hazard Protection: How Time Frames Affect Voter Support

• In Event: Natural Disasters and the Politics of Infrastructure

Abstract

Natural and manmade hazards such as earthquakes, wildfires, and cyberattacks pose
serious threats to critical public services, such as electricity, transportation systems, and household water supply. Yet scholarship suggests voters are reluctant to support public
expenditures on up-front investments to guard against such hazards because of myopia and
misperceptions, partisan divides among the elites providing them with cues regarding the
importance of such hazards, and concerns that politicians will misuse funds. To what extent can
voter willingness to fund prevention be countered through the carefully-designed communication strategies? In this paper, we test the effect of one approach grounded in psychology and behavioral economics: varying the time frame over which risks are presented.

In a large survey experiment with registered voters in California, we assess whether varying the time frame over which risk estimates are presented changes support for financing investments to address seismic and cybersecurity risks faced by water utilities. We find that increasing the time period over which equivalent risks are presented yields greater voter support for investments to guard systems against seismic and cybersecurity threats, though the most effective time frame varies across these domains. Longer time frames appear to be particularly effective among voters less attuned to hazard risks at baseline, and among non-Republicans. Stepping back, our results suggest that voters may not be focused purely on the short-term; risk estimates presented over 10- to 30-year time frames can be more compelling than those stated for the near-term.

Authors

• Tim Marple, University of California, Berkeley

• Alison E. Post, University of California, Berkeley