Evaluating Public Responses to Government Buyout Programs

• In Event: Attitudes toward Climate Change and Response Actions

Abstract

As sea levels rise and extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, millions of U.S. properties are now at risk of repeat or chronic flooding. One policy response has been expansion of government programs to purchase private properties and subsidize the relocation of American families and businesses (i.e. property buyouts). These measures aim to protect communities and minimize public costs but can also be coercive. They can encroach on personal liberties, exacerbate inequities, and fracture communities, depending on how they are designed. For example, buyouts that are offered to individuals rather than communities might leave those remaining in at-risk places even more vulnerable due to disinvestment and decreased tax revenues. Property buyouts have been a part of federal disaster relief programs for decades but recently have attracted more attention as states and localities have initiated their own self-funded buyout programs. We have little knowledge of how the American public would respond to such programs, which give the government a direct role in private decisions about where households can and should be located. In a large-scale, nationally representative survey of Americans, we use a conjoint experiment to assess public preferences towards different features of buyout programs, including whether they are mandatory or voluntary, whether they prioritize equity or efficiency, whether they include relocation provisions, and whether they are implemented by local, state or national governments. Additionally, we assess whether prior extreme weather experience and ideological preferences, among other sources of heterogeneity, shape the conditions under which respondents accept coercive measures.

Authors

• Sara Constantino, Northeastern University

• Alicia Dailey Cooperman, George Washington University

• Robert O. Keohane, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

• Megan Mullin, University of California, Los Angeles