Summary:
This paper extends the economic literature on the private provision of public goods by exam-ining the relevance of perceptions of climate policy to voluntary contributions to the public good of climate protection. Based on an analytical model which allows for perceptions of cli-mate policy such as justification of international climate policy, procedural trust and proce-dural justice to affect voluntary climate protection activities, we examined data from repre-sentative surveys among citizens in the USA and Germany. Our microeconometric analysis confirmed the prediction that the perceived justification of international climate policy is posi-tively related to voluntary contributions to climate protection in both countries. We also found empirical support (mainly for the USA) that higher perceived procedural justice lowers citi-zens’ propensity to adopt climate protection activities. In contrast, we found no support that higher perceived procedural trust reduces citizens’ propensity to adopt such measures. In a broad interpretation, our empirical results imply that individuals’ perceptions about the pro-cess of providing public goods should also be considered when analyzing the factors explain-ing voluntary individual contribution to public goods.