Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics最新文献

Social interventions are a popular tool to stimulate pro-social (including climate-friendly) behavior. Their use is, however, limited when the descriptive norm is low, i.e. when a desirable behavior is only practiced by a minority within the respective reference group. We tackle this issue by testing new strategies for social interventions, with an especially sophisticated target group. We implement a field experiment at two subsequent conferences in environmental economics, with which we examine the conference participants’ proclivity to offset carbon emissions. For the two treatment conditions that we introduce, we document an average null effect. Yet, for one condition, we find that the intervention can be effective when the targeted individuals feel socially close to the referenced peer group. Further, we find suggestive evidence that the effectiveness of such interventions increases as individuals are exposed to repeated treatment, but with decreasing marginal returns.

Is the training of economists keeping pace with the growing research on climate change? Is climate change considered a central or a specialized economic topic? This study documents the attention given to climate change in economics by conducting a comprehensive analysis of fifty-seven introductory textbooks. The findings reveal a notable divergence in perspectives across countries and between the domains of Microeconomics and Macroeconomics. These divergences persist irrespective of individual academic standing, underscoring a pronounced schism within the profession regarding the emphasis placed on climate change in economic discourse.

Taxation is a recurrent topic in people's conversations, also on social media. Yet, informal channels such as social media have been widely neglected in studies that examined how information about taxation spreads across social networks. Using posts on Twitter (currently called “X”) with taxation related hashtags from 2010 to 2020, we examined what linguistic cues are associated with information diffusion, that is, the number of retweets a message receives. The use of emotional, moral, and moral-emotional language in a tweet was associated with greater diffusion (i.e., more retweets). In contrast to the negativity bias literature, positive emotional words were more strongly associated with information diffusion than negative emotional words. Among the specific emotions that taxation research has focused on, only the use of anger (but not anxiety) words was associated with more retweets. The study contributes to the literature by examining individuals’ reasoning about taxes.

We run a between-subjects experiment to test how better-organized credit card statements, written in simplified language and default choices, help people make better financial decisions. Participants were shown either a standard (control treatment), a simplified, or a simplified with anchored information statement of a credit card bill. While observing the bill, they were asked factual and decision-making questions. We find higher correct response rates and debt repayment levels in our simplified information and anchored treatments compared to the control treatment. Simplified information increases repayment levels by 3.13 %, on average, when participants can repay the total debt, and by 9.18 % when they can only repay 60 % of the total debt. We also provide evidence on the effect of default pre-filling payment choices on debt repayment. Participants were given a choice box filled with either the number zero or 100 % of the amount due. We find higher debt repayment levels when the default choice is the total amount due. Overall, a higher default amount increases repayment levels by 14.56 %, on average, when participants can repay the total debt, and by 3.14 % when they can only repay 60 % of the total debt.

Public support of renewable energy has become more important as the share of renewable energy increases recently. To avoid public opposition framing strategies can be used. In this study, we aim to reveal the effect of moral framing on support for an intended offshore wind farm (OWF) project in Turkey. We designed a survey with two framing conditions in line with the assertions of Moral Foundations Theory, individualizing and binding, and one control condition. The individualizing condition appeals to the values associated with fairness and well-being. The binding condition appeals to values associated with patriotism, purity and respect for authority, and a control condition lacking any such targeting. We found, prioritizing economic growth, positive expectations from OWFs and willingness to bear personal cost to solve environmental problems positively affect support for OWF, while visual concerns and concerns regarding environment and limited natural resources negatively affect support for OWF. Regarding the framing effect, we found that congruency between political ideology and framing conditions is only significant for individualizing condition. Left-leaning individuals who were exposed to individualizing condition are more likely to support OWFs compared to those of who were exposed to binding and control condition.

We investigate the effect of salient green self-image on the willingness to participate in online volunteering for an environmental cause. Our experimental study shows that when the information about participants’ own perceived consciousness and responsibility is made salient, the likelihood of volunteering increases by 11.85 percentage points. Our study contributes to the literature by showing a causal relationship between self-image and pro-environmental volunteering. Our findings have implications for the promotion of online volunteering.

This study aims to understand the factors that contribute to people's happiness or life satisfaction in 166 countries (51 developed, 115 developing) from 2005 to 2020. The study considers the effects of various socioeconomic factors, such as per capita income, social support, freedom to make life choices, perception of corruption, air pollution exposure, and gender inequality, on the level of happiness. We used panel two-way robust fixed effects and panel quantile regression for empirical analysis. The results show that per capita income, social support, and freedom to make life choices positively impact happiness, while air pollution exposure has a negative impact. However, gender inequality does not significantly affect happiness levels. These findings highlight the relevance of the Easterlin Paradox, which suggests that income can mediate happiness by promoting emotional well-being, gender equality, and a clean environment. Therefore, policymakers should focus on creating a more holistic approach to improving the well-being and happiness of its citizens.

Uncertainty is one of the most important challenges in the study of climate change and its interactions with the economy. This paper looks at this uncertainty from two different points of view. The first one is the way in which the IPCC deals with uncertainty in its reports, and the way in which that uncertainty is communicated. The IPCC approach is implemented using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods as well as heuristics. The IPCC studies climate change, its evolution, and its impact in a context which, in terms of the decision-making approach, is akin to analysis under risk. The second point of view is the one adopted by decision theory, which deals with uncertainty in the Knightian sense and, more specifically, with uncertainty that is manifested in multiple probabilistic models or priors. The presence of multiple priors is associated with ambiguity aversion and misspecification concerns that necessitate the use of maxmin optimizing approaches. The IPCC and the decision theory approaches are briefly reviewed and compared, with the objective of finding ways to accommodate the concept of risky parameters or impacts of the IPCC framework within the framework of optimization under uncertainty in multiple probabilistic models.

We ask a representative sample of German household decision-makers to enter their mother's birthday, with potential payments depending on the month and the day they state. Thus, we create an incentive to lie. Compared to the die-under-the-cup experiment, our alternative has a lower probability that the income-maximizing outcome is true. Furthermore, it is better suited for online surveys and samples in which gambling is socially stigmatized. We conduct different variations of this game to crystalize design recommendations for researchers interested in our tool. Participants lied to receive higher payoffs, but only with real monetary incentives and only to a relatively small extent. Our results are largely insensitive to several design elements that we vary, such as the probability of being paid and the magnitude of the payoffs.