Learning about German farmers' willingness to cooperate from public goods games and expert predictions

verfasst von

Jens Rommel, Christoph Schulze, Bettina Matzdorf, Julian Sagebiel, Vera Wechner

Abstract

There is a growing interest in collective contracts to address agri-environmental policy goals at landscape scales. Yet, little is known about farmers' general willingness to cooperate. We developed four treatments of a linear public goods game to investigate farmers' willingness to cooperate: (1) heterogeneous endowments, (2) leading-by-example, (3) social norms, and (4) pinpointing the socially optimal solution. Based on a sample of 358 German farmers, we find that contributions reach more than two-thirds of the initial endowment across different treatments on average. Nudging the socially optimal solution is the most effective treatment. In addition to the experiment, we elicited incentivized predictions on experimental outcomes from 212 experts. Expert beliefs on treatment effects appear to be calibrated on laboratory studies, highlighting the need to conduct, communicate, and discuss experimental studies outside the laboratory. Young female academics with an Economics background most accurately predict farmers' behaviour in the experiment.

Organisationseinheit(en)

Institut für Umweltplanung

Externe Organisation(en)

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF) e.V.
Deutsches Zentrum für integrative Biodiversitätsforschung (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Typ

Artikel

Journal

Q Open

Band

3

Publikationsdatum

2023

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Lebensmittelwissenschaften, Entwicklung, Agrar- und Biowissenschaften (sonstige), Volkswirtschaftslehre und Ökonometrie, Volkswirtschaftslehre, Ökonometrie und Finanzen (sonstige)

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1093/qopen/qoac023 (Zugang: Offen)