tag:www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de,2005:/fachbereich-vwl/professuren/drupp/newsnews2024-02-21T13:39:45ZNAGR-fakws-16037466-production2020-10-21T10:15:00ZInformation Avoidance and Moral Behavior: Experimental Evidence from Food Choices<p>Abstract: Access to morally relevant information could lead to behavioral change, but only if individuals attend to such information. We investigate this issue in the context of food consumption, where the decision to eat meat from intensive farming entails animal suffering. Based on a pre-registered experiment, we find that about 30 percent of subjects avoid information on animals' living conditions in intensive farming. When receiving information, subjects significantly reduce their propensity to consume meat on average by about 12 percentage points in the laboratory and 6 to 8 percentage points in university canteens. We also find hat individuals who select out of information are particularly responsive to it. This selection pattern impedes the effectiveness of information provision, even when information is provided for free.</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: Zoom (bitte kontaktieren Sie Björn Bos für die Zugangsdaten)<br></p>NAGR-fakws-15930850-production2020-10-14T10:15:00ZAbsolute groupishness and the demand for information<p>Abstract: Does social identity affect how decision makers consume and digest new information? We study this question through a theoretically informed experiment, employing a variant of the sender receiver game in which receivers can purchase reports from up to two senders. Depending on senders' preferences for truth-telling, reports are either informative or not. In the baseline condition of our experiment, receivers observe senders' incentives for reporting truthfully. In the treatment condition receivers additionally observe whether they share a group identity with the sender. In the experiment, group identities are induced via a standard minimal group paradigm. We find that senders behave in line with a model that assumes senders incur a positive lying cost. Making social identity observable significantly affects information acquisition and makes receivers more prone to ignore potentially informative outgroup reports. This is especially the case when outgroup senders have higher incentives for truth-telling. This change in information acquisition has implications for optimal decision making: it negatively affects receivers' ability to correctly infer the true state of world.</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: tba<br></p>NAGR-fakws-15379899-production2020-05-13T10:15:00ZPossibly disastrous, but controllable – on dynamic decision making under Knightian uncertainty<p>Abstract: </p>
<p>The basic theory for decision-making under risk – Expected Utility Theory – requires that precise probabilities and the ethical value (often called “utility”) of possible outcomes of all available options for action are known. If decision makers are in a situation of uncertainty -- in which no precise probabilities of the outcomes of the available options for action are known -- a broad variety of rules justifying a choice of an option for action has been justified meanwhile, often discussed under the name of Precautionary Principles (PP).<br>However, with regard to policy options addressing global environmental change, principles derived from the EUT and PP are still not applicable in some cases. There are decision situations, in which decision makers know merely possible outcomes of the available options for action and in which the ethical values of the outcomes are on a par: all options for actions can lead to catastrophic outcomes in the worst case and tremendous gains in the best. In short: there are decision situations in which the available options for action cannot be ranked on the basis of the foreknowledge about the epistemic and the ethical value of their possible outcomes.<br>In such situations, properties of the processes by which the particular options for actions are being realized shouldprovide reasons for a choice of an option for action, or so I have argued elsewhere (Pissarskoi 2018). There are several candidates for evaluative criteria of dynamic processes, discussed especially within the field of Global Environmental Change research: flexibility, reversibility, resilience, controllability. However, the axiology of these criteria remains unsettled so far. <br>The goal of my research project lies in identification and justification of evaluative criteria for processes of realization of options for action under deep uncertainty. One candidate for such a criterium is the ability to control the realization processes. I believe that controllability is the most general value of dynamic processes and that the other properties such as flexibility, reversibility, or resilience are instrumentally valuable in so far they contribute to the ability to control the process. In order to justify this hypothesis, an explication of the notion of “controllability of a process of realization of an option for action” is required. <br>In my talk, I shall present my current state of research on an explication of this notion. David Colligridge (1980, 1982) suggested an explication of controllability. I shall introduce it and demonstrate some of its shortcomings.Based on this critique, I shall suggest an alternative explication and empirical criteria for comparison of realization processes with regard to their controllability. <br>Collingridge, David (1980): Social Control of Technology . Frances Pinter Publishers, London.<br>Collingridge, David (1982): Critical decision making : a new theory of social choice . Frances Pinter, London.</p>
<p>Pissarskoi, Eugen (2018): The Controllability Precautionary Principle: Justification of a climate policy goal under uncertainty. In: Climate Justice: Economics and Philosophy , eds. Ravi Kanbur and Henry Shue, Oxford University Press, Oxford, chap. 11, pp. 188–208</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>To join the Zoom Meeting, please contact Björn Bos for the Login-Details<br></p>NAGR-fakws-14491583-production2020-02-05T11:15:00ZWhen shocks become persistent - Household-level asset growth in the aftermath of an extreme weather event<p>Abstract: This article analyzes to what extent an extreme weather event can have persistent effects on household-level asset growth. Our focus is on the effect of a once-in-50-year winter disaster on post-shock livestock accumulation among pastoralists in Mongolia. Building on a novel household panel dataset, we investigate asset dynamics 2-5 years after the disaster occurred. Using a Hausman-Taylor estimator, we show that the extreme event has a significant, negative, economically large, and persistent effect on households’ asset growth rates. Households seek to mitigate the shock effect by reducing their livestock offtake. This effort is counteracted by a large, negative, and persistent shock effect on livestock fertility. In addition, the intensity of the extreme weather event is a strong predictor for abandoning the herding economy, resulting in lower overall welfare. Our findings suggest that most households are unable to fully offset the effects of the weather disaster through their own coping behavior.</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: 0079 VMP 5</p>NAGR-fakws-14373022-production2020-01-08T11:15:00ZEntropic preferences under Knightian uncertainty<p>Abstract: Decision-making about economy-environment systems is often characterized by deep uncertainties. We provide an axiomatic foundation of preferences over lotteries with known payoffs over known states of nature and unknown probabilities of these outcomes (“Knightian uncertainty”). We elaborate the fundamental idea that preferences over Knightian lotteries can be represented by an entropy function (sensu Lieb and Yngvason 1999) of these lotteries. Based on nine axioms on the preference relation and three assumptions on the set of lotteries, we show that there uniquely (up to linear-affine transformations) exists an additive and extensive real-valued function (“entropy function") that represents uncertainty preferences. It represents non-satiation and (constant) uncertainty aversion. As a concrete functional form, we propose a one-parameter function based on Atkinson's (1970) measure of inequality. We show that the parameter captures the degree of uncertainty aversion.</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: 0079 VMP 5</p>NAGR-fakws-13968558-production2019-12-18T11:15:00ZVoting and information: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial<p>Abstract: Information asymmetries affect many real-world decisions, including voting behavior. Important welfare losses may occur if people's voting behavior is biased because of information asymmetries and misleading political campaigns. One crucial example is environmental policy. Growing evidence suggests that information asymmetries affect people's perceptions of Pigouvian policies. In particular, people tend to underestimate the incentive effect of such policies and overestimate their drawbacks. In combination with a ballot initiative on carbon taxes, taking place in Washington state, we realize a large randomized controlled trial providing information on carbon taxes to over 285,000 individuals. We collect data at the precinct level and measure variation in voting behavior across treatments and with respect to the counterfactual. We find that our interventions affect voting behavior, especially for voters located in precincts relatively opposed to the initiative and more exposed to information countering the arguments for carbon taxes. Additional evidence is provided at the individual level with a survey of about 1,000 individuals, using the same treatments as in the randomized controlled trial. The survey confirms that the informational treatments change voting preferences through beliefs’ updating.</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: 0079 VMP 5</p>NAGR-fakws-13968511-production2019-12-11T11:15:00ZA large household panel survey on climate change perceptions and adaptation in Germany: Effects of flood experience on climate beliefs and an overview of other topics<p>Abstract: This talk summarises some of the works which are based on the Eval-MAP dataset. Eval-Map is a household panel survey on climate change perceptions and adaptation amongst more than 6,000 different households conducted in Germany during 2012-2015. After introducing the dataset, I will give a short overview of different ongoing empirical analyses, e.g. on the effectiveness of flood awareness campaigns of the German insurance industry, and on the relation of income with flood risk, adaptation, and vulnerability. The main part of the talk will focus on the question how flood experience shapes beliefs in the existence of global climate change. Based on a difference-in-differences analysis, we find that flood-affected individuals tend to retain their pre-flood beliefs regardless whether they believed in climate change before the flood. Hence, there is a case of confirmation bias: extreme weather experience seems to be interpreted and evaluated in a way that confirms prior beliefs. This shows that climate change beliefs may not converge after the experience of extreme weather events such as floods. These events rather have the potential to increase polarization of public opinion about climate change which is an important finding for policymakers and public authorities.</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: 0079 VMP 5</p>NAGR-fakws-13968469-production2019-12-04T11:15:00ZPublic gob provision: Theory and experimental design<p>Abstract: Inspired by the possibility to modify global temperatures on a short timescale and inexpensively through so-called ‘solar geoengineering’, Weitzman coined the term ‘public gob’: A public good (more of it is better) for some under some circumstances and a public bad (more of it is worse) for others under some other circumstances. In addition to free-riding incentives, public gobs are prone to ‘free-driving’: the agent with the strongest preference may set the public gob level for all, leading to over-provision of the public gob. We argue that public gobs aptly capture interactions involving externalities in examples that extend well beyond geoengineering. We develop a theoretical framework for the non-cooperative public gob provision that includes both Weitzman’s model and standard public good frameworks as special cases. We also present an experimental design to test preferences for public gob provision.</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: 0079 VMP 5</p>NAGR-fakws-13968449-production2019-11-27T11:15:00ZThe Nature of Experience<p>Abstract: In many environments, exogenous (‘natural’) and strategic uncertainty jointly de- termine outcomes for individuals and an increasing number of economic experiments attempt to study human behavior in such settings. We design a choice environment that allows to study how individuals change their actions in repeat play depending on whether natural or strategic factors uniquely caused an adverse outcome. As expected, we find no statistically significant evidence that the experience of a zero- payout events affects whether subjects change their choice between rounds. However, there is significant evidence for a ‘human factor’: Despite statistical equivalence, subjects are significantly more likely to change their choice after experiencing adverse outcomes caused by strategic uncertainty, but not after experiencing the same outcome caused by natural uncertainty.</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: 0079 VMP 5</p>NAGR-fakws-13968379-production2019-11-20T11:30:00ZClimate Change and Inequality - The Role of Mitigation and Adaptation<p>Abstract: We study the interaction of inequality and climate change from a conceptual perspective, empirically estimating the relationship on growth, inequality, and regional temperature increase, and implement the result in an optimizing integrated assessment model. We show that several conceptual challenges exist, propose solutions, and show the resulting global income distributions for different scenarios including the 1.5 and 2.0 degree targets.</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:30 - 14.00 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: 0079 VMP 5</p>NAGR-fakws-13968279-production2019-11-06T11:15:00ZImperfect Knowledge, Information Provision and Behavior: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment to Encourage Resource Conservation<p>Abstract: I show that imperfect knowledge about how to change one's outcomes is a severe obstacle to efficient behavior, but can be overcome by providing simple, low-cost information. In a natural field experiment among 14,796 customers to reduce residential water consumption in a severely water stressed country, customers of the national water utility receive a one-shot text message on their mobile phone with varying content. Messages providing previously unknown conservation strategies decrease consumption by 5.2 percent. This effect persists over eight months until rain season sets in. Two additional treatments that encourage customers to develop and act upon their own strategies are ineffective. They rule out that treatment effects are driven by behavioral mechanisms like salience, awareness of water scarcity or being asked to save water. Instead, the results and corroborating survey evidence suggest that customers lack knowledge on how to reduce consumption. </p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: 0079 VMP 5</p>NAGR-fakws-13967991-production2019-10-30T11:15:00ZPoliticians and their promises in an uncertain world: Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment in India<p>Abstract: In emerging economies, pro-social policy outcomes may be prevented by bureaucratic inefficiency, capture by elected or non-elected office holders, or by other hurdles. For local citizens, uncertainty about the true cause of such failures often prevails. We study the pro-sociality of politicians’ decision-making in a modified dictator game with real politician participants in rural India. In our game, a recipient citizen does not know whether dictator politician capture or bad luck is to blame when receiving zero. Using a 2 × 2 design, we investigate how the combination of two non-monetary instruments affect politician behaviour in this hard to govern environment. The first instrument, a (non-binding) promise, is a commitment device; the second introduces a minimal relational lever between the politician and the recipient. We find that politician-dictator giving becomes dramatically more pro-social, from zero- to 50:50-giving, when these two instruments are combined. Our results provide new insights about the scope for norm-based, low-cost mechanisms to tackle governance-related asymmetric information challenges in developing-country settings.</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: 0079 VMP 5</p>NAGR-fakws-13967843-production2019-10-23T10:15:00ZUnderstanding Different Perspectives on Economic Growth and Climate Policy<p>Abstract: Should economic growth continue in a world threatened by the prospect of catastrophic climate change? The scientific and public debate has brought forth a broad spectrum of views and narratives on this question, ranging from neo-classical economics to degrowth. We argue that different positions can be attributed to underlying differences in views on (i) factors that determine human well-being, (ii) the feasibility and desirability of economic growth, (iii) appropriate intervention points, and (iv) preferences about governance and policy options. For each of these dimensions, we propose points of agreement on which a consensus between conflicting positions might be achieved. From this basis we distill a sustainability transition perspective that could act as a basis for a renewed debate on how to align human well-being with environmental sustainability.</p>
<p>Zeit: 12:15 - 13.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: 0079 VMP 5</p>NAGR-fakws-13967619-production2019-10-16T16:15:00ZEin Klimaplan für Deutschland - Eckpunkte einer CO2-Preisreform<p>Abstract: Mit der bisherigen auf Ordnungsrecht und Förderprogrammen basierenden Politik hat Deutschland keine Chance, seine Klimaziele für den Gebäude- und Verkehrssektor bis 2030 einzuhalten. In dem Vortrag wird die Rolle der CO2-Bepreisung als Kerninstrument einer ambitionierten Klimapolitik dargestellt: Welche Preise sind nötig? Wie kann ein CO2-Preis als Steuer oder als Emissionshandel umgesetzt werden? Was sind Vor- und Nachteile der verschiedenen Optionen? Wie lassen sich die Kosten über Haushalte und Firmen gerecht verteilen? Der Vortrag stellt wesentliche Inhalte aus dem MCC-PIK Gutachten zur CO2-Bepreisung vor, das auch im Klimakabinett vorgestellt wurde. Zudem erfolgt auch eine erste Bewertung der Beschlüsse des Klimakabinetts.</p>
<p>Zeit: 18:15 - 19.45 Uhr</p>
<p>Raum: ESA C</p>