Not in my backyard, not in my body: essays on trust, risk, and public policy acceptance

The interaction between individuals, public policies, and collective goods is central to understanding interventions in environmental and health domains. The three essays share a common economic problem: individual choices may generate consequences beyond the decision maker, while decentralized decisions may not coincide with socially desirable provision or uptake. Coastal adaptation can display public-good characteristics whose financing implications depend on non-excludability and non-rivalry (Woodruff et al., 2020), while collective benefits may coexist with localized costs (Buchholz et al., 2018). In health, vaccination generates benefits beyond the vaccinated individual, and economic models show that free-riding on herd immunity can produce under-investment relative to the social optimum (Geoffard & Philipson, 1997; Francis, 2004). These mechanisms provide a rationale for public intervention while showing why its effectiveness also depends on individual acceptance and behavior. The first essay studies this issue through coastal restoration, examining willingness to contribute financially to coastal protection and support for dredging and beach-nourishment facilities. It connects the public-good dimension of coastal adaptation with NIMBY-type opposition: collective environmental benefits may coexist with local externalities, and acceptance can depend on proximity, trust, environmental perceptions, distributive attitudes, and the communication and representation of technologies (Carley et al., 2020; Devine-Wright et al., 2017). The second essay transfers the analysis from environmental infrastructure to vaccination and focuses on the distinction between beliefs and realized behavior. Literature already reviewed in the thesis shows that stated preferences, intentions, and attitudes do not necessarily translate into subsequent uptake (Diks et al., 2021; Lambooij et al., 2015; Lehmann et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2022). This mirrors the first essay: just as willingness to pay for coastal protection and support for an installation are distinct outcomes, vaccination behavior and beliefs about vaccine safety may also diverge. The third essay extends this perspective from individuals to households by examining whether the COVID-19 vaccination behavior of household heads is associated with paediatric vaccination choices. It therefore develops the social dimension already relevant to the second essay. Vaccination choices are embedded in relationships: peer behavior can affect vaccination decisions, social networks can transmit norms and information, and preventive interventions can generate within-household spillovers (Betsch et al., 2017; Brunson, 2013; Hirani & Wüst, 2024). Taken together, the essays move from local acceptance of an environmental intervention, to the divergence between vaccination beliefs and behavior, and finally to the association of vaccination choices within households. Trust, risk perceptions, externalities, and the distinction between attitudes and realized behavior provide common analytical links. The collection therefore shows that the economic rationale for public intervention does not by itself ensure policy effectiveness: interventions generating collective benefits or promoting socially valuable outcomes also depend on how individuals perceive, accept, and respond to them. This common perspective connects the environmental and health applications and motivates a multidimensional approach to public-policy acceptance.