Transparency and Views Regarding Nuclear Energy Before and After the Fukushima Accident: Evidence on Micro-Data

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of government transparency on changing views regarding nuclear energy before and after Japan's natural and nuclear disaster of 2011. Individual-level data were used, covering 45 countries and containing 27423 observations. It was observed in the majority of countries that the rate of favouring nuclear energy declined after the disaster. However, empirical results show that such a tendency is less likely to be observed in a more transparent country. This implies that views regarding nuclear energy were less elastic to the news of the Fukushima incident when people were more certain about nuclear energy prior to the Fukushima incident.