REECAP 7th Annual Meeting

2 Jun 2025, 10:00 → 5 Jun 2025, 14:00 Europe/Berlin

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig

Antje Risius, Julian Sagebiel (iDiv)

It is our great pleasure to invite you to the 7th Annual Meeting of the Research Network on Economic Experiments for the Common Agricultural Policy (REECAP) which is being organised by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig and will take place in Leipzig, Germany, from 2-5 June 2025.

About REECAP:

The Research Network on Economic Experiments for the Common Agricultural Policy (REECAP) is an EU-wide network founded in 2017. It aims at bringing together researchers, experts and policy-makers interested in the use of economic experimental approaches to evaluate and improve the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). More information about REECAP, please visit https://sites.google.com/view/reecap/about 

Theme and topics of interests: 

The annual meeting’s objective is to strengthen and enlarge the REECAP community and disseminate research and policy advice in the field of agricultural policy. We will accept contributions from the fields of behavioural and experimental agricultural economics (finished or work-in-progress) focused on CAP, biodiversity on agricultural landscapes, or related food systems policies. Specifically, we invite:

• Applications of experimental methods to agricultural and agri-environmental themes: laboratory, field, lab-in-the-field, randomized controlled trials (RCT), discrete choice experiments (DCE);
• Quasi-experimental work in the field of agricultural economics and agri-environmental policy and agri-food business economics with clear links to policy questions;
• Work using behavioral insights or economic psychology to improve food, agricultural, and agri-environmental policies;
• Experimental designs.

The congress will take place over four days. Day 1 will feature workshops on choice experiments and living labs. Days 2 and 3 will include parallel sessions and keynote presentations, while Day 4 will conclude with an excursion to an experimental field station. Read more about the side programme here.

Keynotes will be given by Ulf Liebe and Sven Anders.

Early Carrer Researcher Award:

REECAP will award a Prize to the best contribution by an early career researcher. Eligible contributions should have, as a lead author, a researcher who has not yet earned his or her PhD or who has completed it in 2023 or later and have not obtained the award in previous editions. The selection process will be made by the members of the Scientific Committee of the REECAP Workshop and a representative of the REECAP board who will act as Chair of the Award Committee. The contributions will be assessed based on presentation during the conference (full paper submission is not required). The assessment will account for three criteria: scientific merit, policy relevance, and clarity and structure of the presentation. The winner will be announced at the closing ceremony of the workshop and the decision disseminated via the REECAP Blog and newsletter. The award will consist of a certificate and an invitation to present the paper at a REECAP Webinar. After the webinar, the winner can consult the full manuscript with two selected members of the REECAP board, and receive free feedback on the full papers before its submission to a journal.

Monday 2 June

Workshop "Basket Based Choice Experiments": Introduction to BBCE

Convener: Vincenzina Caputo

12:00 Lunch break

Workshop "Basket Based Choice Experiments": BBCE: Two Applications and Q&A

Convener: Vincenzina Caputo

14:45 Coffee break

Workshop "Living Labs"

Convener: Antje Risius

1 Welcome and Introduction

Speaker: Antje Risius (Hochschule Fulda//Universität Göttingen)

2 Theory insights: From stated preference to large language models: the past, present, and future of field experiments

Speaker: Vic Adamowicz (University of Alberta)

3 Work in progress: Living labs on Agroecological Approaches: Learnings from one of the biggest (international) collaborations on living labs

Speaker: Yann Raineau (INRAE)

4 Work in progress: Design thinking in Living labs: Learnings from one of the biggest (international) projects on living labs in teaching at Applied Universities across Europe

Speaker: Elina Fisk (JAMK University of Applied Sciences, Finland)

5 World-Café on Replication, Validation and Objectivity

Need for structure and boundaries? Streamlining living laboratories in face of scientific rigor (60 minutes)

Pathways to increased developments: Joint efforts to share the development of standards, reflection and progress (40 minutes)

Synthesis and Closing (20 Minutes)

Tuesday 3 June

Registration

Session Block: 1A Risk

Convener: Paula Schmidt-Kittler (ZALF)

6 Risk and time preferences in farmers' business expectations: Insights from lab-in-the-field experiments in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan

Farmers’ expectations regarding the future of their farm business play an important role in investment decisions, succession planning, and long-term farm sustainability. Understanding the association of behavioral factors like risk and time preferences with these expectations can contribute to designing agri-environmental policies. While these behavioral dimensions have been extensively studied, little is known from transitional context of former planned economies where new farming community was introduced three decades ago following the collapse of collective farms.
To address this gap this study examines the relationship between farmers’ risk and time preferences and their expectations regarding investment decisions, intergenerational succession, and business continuity in two distinct irrigated settings of post-Soviet Central Asia. Using lab-in-the-field experiments with 713 farmers in Jalal-Abad region of Kyrgyzstan and Samarkand region of Uzbekistan conducted in October-December 2024, we elicited risk and time preferences through lottery-based tasks of Tanaka et al. (2010). The experiments were followed by survey module. We assigned risk and time preference parameters to each individual farmer by using cumulative prospect theory and quasi-hyperbolic discounting.
The results suggest that more risk-averse farmers are more likely to expect farm succession, suggesting that they perceive farming as a stable livelihood for future generations. At the same time, lower risk aversion is associated with higher investment likelihood, which may indicate that more risk-taking farmers are likely to make significant farm investment. Loss aversion is not significantly associated with investment, planned farming horizon, or succession expectations, implying that perceived risk plays a stronger role in farmers’ decisions than the fear of financial losses. Farmers who discount future rewards more heavily expect to exit farming significantly earlier, reinforcing that short-term-oriented farmers struggle with long-term sustainability. While time discounting negatively influences long-term farming expectations, present bias has a positive effect on succession expectations, indicating that farmers with a stronger future orientation are more likely to expect their children or relatives to continue the farm, and rely on intergenerational transfer. Probability distortion does not significantly relate to any of the dependent variables, indicating that farmers’ business expectations are primarily shaped by their risk and time preferences rather than distortions in probability perception.
The results emphasize the need for behaviorally informed policy interventions to support farmers’ long-term decisions. Policies that mitigate perceived risk like insurance schemes or guaranteed investment returns may encourage long-term planning. Additionally, financial instruments tailored to farmers with high discount rates could help shift short-term-focused decision-making towards sustainable agricultural strategies.

Speaker: Nodir Djanibekov (Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO))

7 Linking risk preferences and land use right perceptions: Experimental evidence using a Prospect Theory approach

Motivation
Land tenure security is important for agricultural resilience, investment, and productivity, but in many countries, farmers often lack formal documentation and enforcement. While previous studies have explored institutional and economic determinants of land tenure security, little is known about the behavioral factors that can explain these perceptions. This study estimates the relationship between farm managers’ risk preferences and their perceptions of tenure security.

Methods
Using lab-in-the-field experiment data from 307 farm managers in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in 2024, we examine how risk aversion, loss aversion, and probability distortion relate to perceptions of tenure security, decision-making autonomy in crop choice, marketing, and land sub-rents.
Participants for the experiments were selected randomly from the farm lists in three districts of Samarkand region. Prior to this, we selected three districts depending on the specialization in strategic crops, and more diversified crops. To elicit the parameters of the Prospect Theory utility function, we employed the experimental design of Tanaka et al. (2010) that provides a direct link between participants’ choices in lottery games and values for risk aversion, loss aversion, and probability distortion. The experiments were followed by survey module on perceptions of land use rights and tenure security.
Uzbekistan presents a compelling case for studying this relationship due to institutional reforms. Until 2020, its agricultural sector was guided by production quotas for strategic crops such as cotton and wheat, centralized resource allocation, and frequent farmland redistributions.

Results and lessons learned
Our findings indicate risk aversion primarily affects perceptions of autonomy in crop choice, with less risk-averse farmers perceiving higher likelihood of disagreement and lower likelihood of agreement with autonomy of crop choice. Loss aversion, by contrast, is important in perceived autonomy of crop choice and land-use permissions, with loss-averse managers consistently perceiving higher likelihood of disagreement and lower likelihood of agreement with autonomy of crop choice and land-use permissions. Probability distortion, which in our case may stand for a behavioral bias that puts higher weights on rare but adverse institutional interventions like land redistributions, amplifies perceptions of land use rights, while exacerbating concerns about tenure security. The results also show that institutional factors also matter for perceptions of land rights.
The findings have implications for the design of agri-environmental policies in Uzbekistan, where for example farmers’ participation in agroforestry and land reclamation initiatives were very low, driven both by institutional constraints such as security of property rights and risk concerns.

Speaker: Zafar Kurbanov (IAMO (Leibniz Institute))

8 Risk, Time, and Cotton: Do Institutional Frameworks Explain Differences in Farmers’ Preferences Within a Country?

Most studies on risk and time preferences focus on how individuals’, preferences change ex-post, following a traumatic or dramatic event such as civil war, conflict, or natural disasters. Extensive research has demonstrated that such catastrophic shocks significantly alter risk preferences. Another strand of literature explains how prolonged exposure to risks explains the heterogeneity in preferences and thus focuses on external shocks outside the institutional and policy framework. While these studies provide valuable insights into the ex-post effects of extreme shocks or exposure to prolonged risks on preferences, an important yet underexplored question remains whether institutional framework shapes farmers’ preferences.
Our study addresses this gap by examining how farmers’ preferences related to institutional setting within a single country. Unlike cross-country comparisons, our approach controls for economic, social, and environmental factors, isolating the effects of institutional frameworks. We focus on Uzbekistan, where farmers operate under two distinct agricultural systems. Cotton farmers operate under a highly centralized system, where the government mandates crop choices and controls marketing channels. In contrast, horticultural farmers enjoy greater decision-making autonomy. Using lab-in-the-field experiments with 307 farm managers in Samarkand region of Uzbekistan conducted in November-December 2024, we elicited risk and time preferences through lottery-based tasks of Tanaka et al. (2010). The experiments were followed by survey module. Risk and time preferences were measured using cumulative prospect theory and quasi-hyperbolic discounting.
Results show that higher specialization in cotton significantly reduces both risk and loss aversion. Cotton farmers, operating in the state-controlled system with guaranteed markets and prices, are less sensitive to risks and losses. Their reduced exposure to market-driven uncertainties makes them more tolerant. Over time, top-down institutional predictability appears to desensitize them to losses, as setbacks are perceived as systemic rather than consequences of their own choices. Furthermore, discount rates increase with greater cotton specialization, indicating lower patience and a stronger focus on short-term returns. This can be attributed to financial constraints in cotton farming, where delayed government payments create cash flow uncertainties, incentivizing farmers to prioritize immediate income. The rigidity of cotton farming also limits flexibility, reinforcing a short-term economic mindset. Overall, Uzbekistan’s institutional framework governing cotton production reduces risk and loss aversion while increasing impatience, fostering a preference for monoculture over diversified farming. These findings have important implications for biodiversity on agricultural landscapes, highlighting the behavioral effects of institutional constraints and the need for policies that incentivize diversification.

Speaker: Dr Abdusame Tadjiev (Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO))

9 The Influence of Risk Perception on Farmers’ Enrollment Decisions in Collective Agri-Environmental Schemes

Agri-Environmental Schemes (AES) that incentivize farmers to adopt environmentally friendly farming measures are a central element of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (Hasler et al., 2022; Pe'er et al., 2020). A collective approach allows farmers to coordinate measure implementation at the landscape level, which could increase their environmental effectiveness (Nguyen et al., 2022; Pe'er et al., 2020; Pe'er et al., 2022). However, in collective agri-environmental schemes (cAES), interdependencies between farmers can give rise to collective action problems (Segerson, 2022).

The collective action problem depends on the contractual design of cAES. The most established example of cAES in the Netherlands entails a ‘quasi-collective’ contract model (Bredemeier et al., 2022) (Barghusen et al., 2021; Terwan et al., 2016). A similar cAES model has also recently been implemented in the German federal state of Brandenburg (MLUK Brandenburg, 2024). In these models, a farmers’ collective concludes a collective contract with the financing institution (Bredemeier et al., 2022). In the second step, the collective concludes individual contracts with the members (Bredemeier et al., 2022; Terwan et al., 2016). Thus, farmers still receive individual payments for the implementation of environmentally friendly farming measures (Terwan et al., 2016).

However, the sanctioning regime for a non-implementation of measures can create interdependence in a farmers’ collective (Segerson, 2022). Sanctioning regimes can foresee a threshold from which onwards payment reductions rise disproportionally to infringements (MLUK Brandenburg, 2023). Such disproportionate sanctions lead to a collective liability within the farmers’ collective. This interdependence leads to a need for coordination in the group (Camerer, 2011). However, farmers might fear failure to coordinate within the collective, which could influence their willingness to participate in cAES.

The planned study aims to investigate to what extent different contract features in cAES can lower farmers’ risk perceptions related to the needed coordination in a collective. In the second step, we aim to analyze how contract features associated with a lower risk perception can influence farmers’ willingness to participate in cAES. To investigate these research questions, we plan to conduct a factorial survey experiment with German farmers in the Summer of 2025. Participating in the annual REECAP meeting would allow me to present hypotheses, experimental design, and pre-registered analysis.

Speaker: Paula Schmidt-Kittler (ZALF)

Session Block: 1B DCE Consumers

Convener: Johannes Linde

10 A Novel Approach to Determining Spatially Explicit Values of Natural Capital

Despite the urgent need to preserve natural capital, little is known about the direct benefits people receive from it. Reliable benefit estimates are required to incorporate the complex values of natural capital in national capital accounting, cost-benefit analyses, project appraisal, and international policy agreements. The study employs a spatial-explicit choice experiment approach, which estimates benefits people receive from changes in natural capital conditional on the current endowment in their places of residence. Studying changes in protected areas and high nature value farmland across Germany, we identify significant use and non-use values of natural capital stocks. We find that the marginal values of natural capital are conditional on the spatial endowment and on whether the type of natural capital is use or non-use related. The results are easily transferable to other regions and contexts and allow trading off the benefits and costs of restoring natural capital and biodiversity. Our findings enrich the discussion on the loss of natural capital and biodiversity and can significantly contribute to broader policy discussions in the context of the interlinked climate and biodiversity crises.

Speaker: Nino Cavallaro (Leipzig University)

11 Are Consumers Willing to Share Farmers' Income Risk?

The provision of marketable ecosystem services in agroecosystems is volatile, resulting in farmers' facing income risks. Those risks are likely to increase in the face of biodiversity loss and climate change. Various formal insurance mechanisms have been applied to mitigate this risk while other types of insurance have recently been discussed, such as social insurances.

Social insurances occur if societal actors share farmers' income risk. Two examples of social insurances already exist at a larger scale: payments for ecosystem services and community-supported agriculture (CSA).CSA is an increasingly popular system to locally connect food producers and consumers. Members pay a fixed amount of money to the CSA in exchange for the future, uncertain delivery of food. The mechanism results in insurance to the CSA farmers by potentially increasing stabilizing their incomes.

In this paper, we utilize the CSA concept to study whether consumers are willing to share farmers' risk to stabilize their incomes using a basket based choice experiment.
In the experiment, respondents have to choose a weekly basket of dairy products which they could imagine to purchase from a CSA. Based on this basket, they are then confronted with two CSA contracts that differ in quantity and composition risk as well as in another attribute indicating whether the farmland of the CSA is high nature value or not. Further, the contracts differ in the price per unit of milk equivalents. The respondents are then asked to choose between the two contracts and an opt-out.

Our contribution lies in the combination of the basket-based choice experiment approach and the elicitation of different types of risk preferences. The study is currently developed, the pre-test was already conducted and data collection for the main study is planned for the end of March 2025.

Speaker: Sophie Harzer (iDiv)

12 Public Preferences for Risk of Pesticide Residue or Risk of Invasion to Combat Invasive Species in Agriculture

Invasive alien species (IAS) pose a significant threat to ecosystems, biodiversity, human well-being, and the economy. Effective IAS management requires balancing ecological, economic, and social dimensions. While biological control is often considered an environmentally friendly approach, it carries the risk of the control agent itself becoming invasive. Chemical insecticides, though effective, raise concerns about non-target effects and pesticide residues. This study investigates public preferences for these trade-offs using a case study of Halyomorpha halys (brown marmorated stink bug) in German apple orchards. Specifically, we explore how consumers weigh the risks of pesticide residues against the potential invasiveness of biological control agents and how socio-demographic and political factors shape these preferences.
To address this, we conducted a discrete choice experiment (DCE) with a representative sample of 1,173 German apple consumers. A multinomial logistic (MNL) regression was used to analyze preferences, willingness to pay (WTP), and the effects of information framing.
Results indicate a clear hierarchy in control method preferences, with a strong inclination toward biological control, followed by chemical control and a marked aversion to no control. Respondents were willing to pay €2.32 per kg of apples for biological control, while chemical control was less favored but still accepted with a WTP of €0.97 per kg. Socio-demographic analysis revealed that higher-income individuals supported biological and chemical control, while older respondents and rural residents were more likely to reject chemical control. Respondents with higher education and ties to nature organizations were more concerned about biological control agents becoming invasive and, therefore, opposed this method. Risk-tolerant individuals and East German respondents showed greater acceptance of biological control despite uncertainties. This study is the first to examine the influence of political orientation on IAS control preferences. The analysis indicates that conservative and liberal respondents favored chemical control, whereas ecologically oriented individuals rejected biological and chemical methods, preferring no intervention. Additionally, a comparison between respondents exposed to precise quantitative versus generalized qualitative information revealed that those given generalized descriptions exhibited more substantial support for biological control and had more homogeneous preferences, while those given detailed quantitative information showed preferences that varied more with demographic factors. The findings of this study add to the growing scientific literature of invasion science and offer insights into public preferences, helping policymakers design effective IAS management strategies that are both widely supported and sustainable.

Speaker: Ashley Comma Roy (Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg)

13 Farming the Future: How Germans Value Ecosystem Services and Indirect Land Use Impacts

Motivation and Research Question
Trade-offs between ecosystem services (ES) are currently resolved at the expense of public goods. Multifunctional agriculture has the potential to regionally balance ES supply, but bears the risk of stifling indirect land-use changes abroad, leading to a loss of ES in other countries. We design a spatially explicit discrete choice experiment to estimate preferences for climate regulation, water quality, above and below-ground biodiversity, and indirect land-use effects. Different ecological conditions and agricultural production patterns lead to spatial variation in the current ES supply. We test how varying endowments influence aggregated value estimates. Further, we evaluate how respondents trade off local ES improvements against ES losses abroad and risks of water pollution and N2O emissions against enhanced carbon sequestration.
Methods
Preferences are elicited via a discrete choice experiment (DCE) consisting of 10-12 choice cards with two alternatives. One alternative represents the status quo scenario and the other one exhibits changes in ES and biodiversity under the policy scenario. Cheap-talk and opt-out reminders are included to mitigate cost-vector effects. We convey a policy scenario to the survey participants in which farmers receive payments for adopting diversified management practices. Those result in enhanced carbon sequestration (Mg carbon per ha), improved biodiversity, measured via species richness of farmland birds and earthworms, and reduced (or increased) nitrogen leached to the environment in kg per ha, with changes occurring in a 35 km radius around the respondent’s home. Further, respondents face increased land conversion towards agricultural use abroad (in ha) due to leakage effects, and increased household costs due to tax hikes. All ES, also the ones related to biodiversity are explained to the respondents in an introduction video. Data for the status quo alternative, the regional endowment with ES, is drawn from different sources and spatial scales. Survey participants include all German citizens above the age of eighteen. In cooperation with a market research institute, we will sample 1500 participants, using a quota or a stratified random sampling approach. Quotas/strata include gender, age, education, place of residence (urban/rural), and household income. We will analyze the choice data with multinomial and mixed logit models. To avoid assumptions about the functional form, endowment values will enter the models via interaction terms. We will further test other non-linear specifications (e.g. quadratic and logarithmic), that penalize marginal gains for larger values. AIC and BIC values as well as interpretability serve as model selection criteria.

Speaker: Johannes Linde

11:00 Coffee break

Session Block: 2A Climate Adaption

Convener: Zsoka Halaszova

14 Behavioral Drivers To The Adoption Of Sustainable Agricultural Practices: A Best-Worst Scaling Experiment Among Italian Winegrowers

Motivation and Research Question

Over the past two decades, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has progressively integrated sustainability goals, with the 2023-27 reform reinforcing this direction through voluntary eco-schemes that incentivize sustainable farming practices. Given the growing role of voluntary measures, understanding the factors influencing farmers' decision-making in adopting sustainable practices is crucial for improving policy design and effectiveness. While existing research emphasizes the importance of behavioral determinants in this transition, these factors remain underexplored, highlighting the need for further investigation to enhance the adoption of sustainability schemes. On these premises we investigate which factors do farmers consider to be the most and least relevant in the adoption of sustainable farming practices and which determinants affect the relative importance attributed by them.

Methods

To address our research questions, we designed a survey with two main sections. The first section is a questionnaire to collect information on general farm characteristics, sociodemographic variables, and farmers’ perceptions of contextual barriers. The second section involves an experimental task using a Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) exercise to examine the behavioral determinants influencing the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices. The BWS included 11 behavioral factors capturing dispositional, social, and cognitive dimensions. A Balanced Incomplete Block Design (BIBD) generated 11 choice sets, in which farmers were asked to identify the most and least relevant behavioral factor influencing their decision to adopt sustainability practices. Using the responses, we calculated individual BWS scores and estimated a Random Parameter Logit model to analyze heterogeneity in the relative importance attributed to different behavioral factors. Additionally, we applied a Fractional Multinomial Logit model to examine how factor relevance relates to sociodemographic and contextual characteristics.

Results and Lessons Learned (for the design of agri-environmental policies)

Results show that expected environmental benefits and environmental sensitivity are the most important factors, followed by expected costs. Social influences, such as peer behavior and social approval, rank lower overall—although their importance rises among male farmers and those converting to organic farming. Economic and institutional barriers significantly reduce the relevance of environmental and ethical factors. Interestingly, when respondents perceive the institutional context as a barrier, the relative importance attributed to expected economic benefits decreases. This suggests that institutional obstacles are so significant that they outweigh the perceived advantages of potential economic benefits. Ultimately, our findings show that effective agri-environmental policies must go beyond financial incentives, integrating behavioral insights and most importantly, institutional support to encourage voluntary adoption.

Speaker: Claudia Stefania Gondos (Department of Agricultural and Food Economics, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Piacenza, Italy)

15 Experimental Evidence on Behavioral Factors and Heuristics Influencing Farmers' Willingness to Pay for Drought Index-based Insurance

Motivation and Research Question
Agricultural insurance plays a crucial role in helping farming systems manage climate-related risks. However, despite its potential, farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) remains low, especially for coverage against high-impact, low-probability weather shocks. To enhance WTP and insurance adoption, policymakers must understand how farmers' preferences vary across different contract designs. Yet, contract design is just one factor in the complex decision-making process, which is shaped by behavioral influences that should be considered for effective policy design.
i. whether farmers have a higher WTP for indemnity-based or index-based insurance and the behavioral and socio-demographic factors influencing these preferences;
ii. how heuristics (e.g., the availability heuristic) shape subjective probabilities and WTP for risk management tools.
To achieve this, we conducted a between-subjects experiment investigating the WTP of a sample of Italian tomato growers for drought insurance, considering two types of insurance designs - an innovative index-based insurance and a conventional indemnity-based instrument under different experimental conditions.
Methods
The experiment consists of five sequential tasks. In Task 1, farmers' availability heuristic is elicited under three different experimental conditions: neutral (no elicitation), past (reporting past drought damage to tomato production), and future (estimating potential future drought damage). In Task 2, farmers indicate their WTP for the different types of insurance schemes using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism. Tasks 3-5 measure behavioral factors: Task 3 elicits time preferences using a multiple price list, Task 4 assesses subjective drought probabilities using a token assignment method, and Task 5 measures risk preferences using the Bomb Risk Elicitation Task (BRET). Participants receive financial compensation, with additional earnings based on task outcomes.
Results and Lessons Learned (for the design of agri-environmental policies)
Data collection began in March 2024 on the IndexPrin oTree platform, with the survey conducted online and fully guided by the researchers. To date, a sample of 83 tomato farmers has been surveyed. Preliminary results estimated using a Tobit model with random effects indicate that farmers have a higher WTP for index-based policy compared to an indemnity-based one, revealing potential for introducing this type of insurance to European farmers. In addition, the results show that older farmers and farmers with larger tomato areas have a higher WTP for insurance. Preliminary results of non-parametric tests show that the availability heuristic has no significant effect on farmers' WTP for insurance contracts. Similarly, it does not have a statistically significant effect on shaping farmers' behavioral factors.

Speaker: Mirta Casati (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)

16 The impact of perceived climate extremes on farmer adaptation decisions to climate change

The increasing magnitude and frequency of climate extremes pose major threats to farm productivity and food security. Adaptation trends, however, show gaps, remain incremental (e.g., irrigation) and insufficiently transformative (e.g., agroforestry). These trends could be explained by farmers’ risk behavior or low attitudes to changes in the production system. While past studies assume decision-making from description, less is known about how perceived climate extremes shape adaptation behavior through experience.

In this study, we rely on instance-based learning theory, which suggests the relevance of past events in dynamic decision-making situations. Individuals gather experiences with situations over time, including feedback from the environment on decisions made in these situations. Such instances are then used to judge new situations and hypothesized to influence decision-making. Our aim is to examine the extent to which past experiences (own or in the social environment) from climate extremes influence farmers’ adaptation behavior. Using an experimental approach, we examine how instances relate to adaptation decisions for a hypothetical but representative farm. We impose a split-treatment design: the treatment group receives a new instance by showing a drought event with consequences on farm (field fire, video). The control group is shown a situation without fire. Respondents could then opt between no adaptations for the hypothetical farm or consider two key choices: timing (acting now or later) and investment in a water storage (no change in the production system) or converting 14% of the farms’ land to agroforestry (change in the system).

While the experiment with farmers is currently running (online), we investigate results from an experiment with 176 agricultural students from a German university. About 54% of the sample is experienced with farming decisions and our sample thus represents a group of well-educated future farm decision-makers. Our results indicate that respondents who saw the field fire opted more frequently for the agroforestry system, but no difference was found in timeliness. A higher experienced climate extreme related damage in the past increases the likelihood of opting for adaptation.

The results could inform policymakers. Demonstrating consequences from climate change for farm productivity at a regional level for adapted and non-adapted production systems could help encouraging adaptations. To foster adaptation towards production systems with a high climate mitigation potential, future research should consider effective information schemes in policy mixes.

Speaker: Oliver Behn (University of Marburg)

Session Block: 2B Farmers & Policies

Convener: Oliver Behn

17 Informing the design of low carbon farming payment schemes: a factorial survey experiment

Governments must find ways to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture to meet mid-century net zero ambitions. Changes in farming practice offer emission reduction potential as an important first step to meet ambitious climate targets. Additionally, farmers are increasingly expected to engage in reducing their GHG emissions through contractual arrangements with wholesale buyers. Against this backdrop, and in an evolving agricultural policy environment, payment schemes for low carbon farming might become a key part of the policy mix, because they are based on rewarding positive environmental outcomes, and because they can link actions on farms with the substantial changes in the food system that are ultimately necessary to achieve net zero.

This study investigates farmers' preferences for attributes of low carbon farming payment schemes using data of a factorial survey experiment conducted with 1,229 Scottish farmers in 2024. In the experiment, farmers evaluate hypothetical payment schemes that differ in design attributes following an experimental design. We find that a heterogenous response with regards to acceptance and intention to participate in a carbon payment scheme. While approximately a quarter of farmers is skeptical about carbon schemes irrespective of their characteristics, there is also substantial interest in such schemes among the sampled farmers, the extent of which depends on preferences for scheme characteristics. On average, farmers prefer schemes to be administered by government (as opposed to private institutions), and schemes in which emissions are benchmarked against other, similar farms, rather than their own past emissions. Greater payments per unit of carbon and shorter contracts as well as the option of free advice all improve evaluations. On average, sampled farmers are indifferent to whether the scheme covers the whole farm or only selected farm activities.

Methodologically, the study offers insights into the use of quasi-continuous response scales for acceptance in relation to behavioral intention, in this case farmers' stated willingness to participate in a payment scheme. We find the expected significant correlation between responses to an 11-point scheme acceptance scale and a binary indicator of participation intention. However, there is a considerable degree of heterogeneity in acceptance values associated with intended scheme participation. Notwithstanding the within-subject design used in the study, our findings demonstrate the importance for developing policy recommendations of considering response scales and behavioral indicators in addition to general acceptance within factorial survey experiments.

Speaker: Klaus Glenk (SRUC)

18 Identifying strategies for crop (rotation) planning: a single-player online game approach

Crop diversity and spatial distribution are key contributors to an agricultural landscapes’ potential to provide multiple ecosystem services (Beillouin et al., 2021). Next to biodiversity and other public benefits, diverse crop rotations can help reduce pest pressure, harness pre-crop benefits and mitigate climate- and price-related risks for farmers. Yet, in Germany today, 64% of arable land is covered by the same four crops, namely wheat, barley, rapeseed and maize (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2024). This dominance remains despite incentives and regulations concerning crop choice, crop change, maximum shares, minimum number of crops and so on. This situation points to tensions between different priorities concerning crop (rotation) planning between farmers and those interested in maximizing landscape multifunctionality which policies have not yet been able to mitigate.

Planning crop rotations for a field and yearly cropping plans for a farm is extremely complex, with nutrients, pests, risks, machinery use and marketing opportunities being only some of the many things that need to be considered (Gütschow et al., 2021; Pahmeyer et al., 2021). Given this complexity, a decision-making process considering all these factors plus an individual farmer’s preferences seems highly unlikely in practice, hinting to the use of simplified strategies and heuristics. These planning processes are, however, poorly understood. Understanding them better could help to identify leverage points for policy-making for a more diverse spatial and temporal distribution of crops.
This study aims to contribute to an improved understanding of crop (rotation) planning by identifying strategies that farmers employ in a mimicked planning process. For this purpose, we will design a game based on a simplified farm with information on soils, climate, etc., accompanied by context information on prices, regulations and subsidy schemes. The participants will be presented with a map of the farm’s fields and asked to do the crop planning by choosing crops for each field for the current year and one or more crop rotations for the farm. All information apart from the field location will be invisible at first but accessible via a chatbot. We will track the participants’ behaviour within the game to identify common planning strategies (e.g. order of information access) and analyse correlations between these strategies and the planning outcome parameters (such as spatial and temporal diversity) as well as farmer characteristics.

The study is still being planned, we wish to present the detailed design at the REECAP Meeting 2025.

Speaker: Malin Gütschow (Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung)

19 Dutch farmers' attitudes to Waterschap De Dommel's spatially targeted water transition strategy

The simultaneous desire for nature conservation and the ecosystem services it provides, alongside the challenge of land scarcity, presents an acute dilemma. One approach to addressing this challenge is to apply nature-inspired principles to agri-environmental policies, which can improve land-use efficiency.

In the Netherlands, the Waterschap De Dommel (2023) has introduced a novel policy framework based on catchment-based principles. This approach distinguishes between stream valleys, flanks, and high grounds (Figure 1). The high grounds play a key role in supporting a more stable water table in the flanks by enhanced infiltration and groundwater flow. Stream valleys, on the other hand, provide space for water storage, enabling better drainage in the flanks during pluvial floods. This strategy has implications for irrigation and drainage policies: for example, permits for wells and drainage systems are unlikely to be granted in stream valleys, which are designated as wet flood zones.

This policy framework sparks important discussions about its effectiveness in addressing both floods and droughts, as well as the equity consequences of spatial targeting. Firstly, Dutch policy has only recently shifted to address both flood and drought governance (Bartholomeus et al., 2023), making farmers' perceptions of spatial policies formulated in response to multi-hazard risks particularly valuable (Ward et al., 2020). Secondly, while spatial targeting can improve efficiency, it raises concerns about the fairness of outcome distributions (Wunder et al., 2018). There is a clear disparity between locations: farmers in stream valleys must contend with wet conditions, while their counterparts on the flanks may experience improved water availability. Therefore, discussions about fairness and equity are essential (Kaufmann et al., 2018).

In my study, I aim to explore farmers’ perceptions of this policy approach. I am gathering arguments both in favor of and against the policy through document analysis, news articles, interviews, workshops, and farmers’ forums. To analyze these perspectives, I am using Q-methodology to group farmers based on attitude-oriented statements. This will help identify the diverse viewpoints on the issue and, in turn, provide insights for refining the policy and tailoring communication strategies.

Speaker: Zsoka Halaszova

12:40 Lunch break

Session Block: 3A AES and Farmer Identities

Convener: Carla Erismann (ZALF)

20 Private or Public? Farmer Preferences and Identities in Agri-Environmental Contract Implementation

This study explores farmer preferences for public versus private agri-environmental contracts using a labelled Discrete Choice Experiment with 366 grassland farmers in Germany. Farmers prefer government-funded contracts, requiring higher compensation for privately financed alternatives. Practice-based payments are favoured over result-based payments, indicating risk aversion. Farmer identity significantly influences both contract choice and land allocation: “productivist” farmers demand higher compensation and enrol less land compared to “environmentalist” or “civic minded” farmers. These insights reveal identity-driven heterogeneity in contract preferences, emphasizing the need for tailored contract designs to enhance participation, particularly for privately financed agri-environmental schemes.

Speaker: Mr Christoph Schulze (Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research)

21 Farmer identity, similarity between one’s own and neighbouring farmers’ farmer identity, and their preferences for farmer cluster participation

Farmers’ participation in voluntary agri-environmental (AE) contracts for landscape-scale conservation is determined by various factors like the contract design and farm characteristics. However, recent evidence from agricultural and behavioural sciences has highlighted the importance of considering behavioural factors in farmers’ decision-making. This study examines the role of farmer identity and perceived similarity between farmers’ identity and that of their neighbours in shaping preferences for participation in Farmer Clusters as part of AECS contract requirements.

The Farmer Cluster approach, originated in the UK, aims to achieve landscape-scale conservation objectives through farmer collaboration. The success of AE contracts and the Farmer Clusters depends on farmers’ participation, which is likely to be influenced by farmers’ conservationist identity and their perception of the conservationist identity of neighbouring farmers. In our study, we test whether farmers’ preferences for different Farmer Cluster arrangements included in AE contracts are influenced by 1) their relative salience of the conservationist farmer identity and 2) the perceived similarity between their own and neighbouring farmers’ farmer identities.

767 Scottish, English, French, and Dutch arable farmers received an online survey with a questionnaire and a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to investigate the contract preferences. In the DCE, respondents decided whether to participate in a hypothetical incentive program supporting establishing and maintaining biodiversity-friendly field margins.

Results from mixed logit models show that farmers’ preferences for farmer cluster regimes (optional and required participation) are not significantly influenced by their conservationist farmer identity and are not affected by the perceived similarity with neighbouring farmers. These findings are robust across different sample compositions, where we excluded protest respondents, respondents who rushed through the DCE, and respondents who rushed through the questionnaire. Furthermore, a latent class model suggests that farmer identity can predict farmers’ decisions for conservation contracts on a broader level.

More research is needed to make our results more generalizable. For example, the impact of the conservationist farmer identity on farmers’ decision-making about participating in Farmer Clusters can be investigated for other collaborative landscape-scale conservation approaches or with farmers from other European countries.

Speaker: Moritz Peter Fritschle (Osnabrück University, Dep. of Environmental Economics, Germany)

22 Factorial Survey Experimental Design: Upscaling Result-based schemes in Germany by integrating collective management options.

Result-based payment schemes (RBPS) are an alternative to business-as-usual agri-environmental climate action-based schemes. Key advantages are flexibility and autonomy for farmers, clearer payment-to-biodiversity link (European Commission, 2023). Germany was the first EU member state to apply RBPs (Oppermann & Gujer, 2003) counting currently with RBPs AECMs in several federal states (second pillar) and newly as echo scheme 5 (first pillar) (IEEP, 2022; BMEL, 2025). Besides RBPs, collective management of biodiversity is gaining spotlight in CAP alternatives for AECMs innovation, often mentioned together with RBPs (e.g. in European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, 2021). Germany has 22 past and ongoing RBPS (Hagemann et al., 2025), where only the program “Kooperativer Wiesenvogelschutz(….)” in Bremen applies collective management aspects in its design (BUND 2024). Despite advances, key challenges of RBP include increased risk, regional suitability of indicators, monitoring costs (Hagemann et al. 2025).

The study examines barriers and leverage points for upscaling RBPs in Germany’s Second Pillar AECMs by exploring collective management options blending. More specifically, by understanding farmer’s evaluations on collective options as leverages for RBPs. By applying a factorial survey experiment (FSE) design, the study examines how varying attributes and levels influence farmers' evaluations (scheme feasibility and fairness).

In FSEs, respondents are presented with hypothetical scenarios that depict real-world situations and are asked to evaluate these scenarios in a rating scale (Auspurg & Hinz 2015a). The method first appeared in the 1950s in the social sciences, increasingly applied in different areas, like agricultural policies (Glenk et al. 2024) and resource economics (Parkins, et al.2022). Unlike choice experiments, FSE enables a nuanced evaluation of decision-making (Auspurg & Hinz, 2015b). In Germany’s complex agri-environmental policies, farmers use various criteria to assess incentives, and factorial surveys help analyze the nuances of their trade-offs.

The experimental design follows four stages: (1) a literature review on RBPs in Europe and Germany, including agri-environmental collective options; (2) focus groups with scientists (March 2025) and RBP Network stakeholders (April 2025) to establish hypotheses; (3) identifying links between RBP upscaling challenges and collective management solutions; and (4) testing vignettes in a pre-test (N=30) at the end of April 2025.

The final study targets 250 respondents via online survey (Survey Engine) distributed via email (starting June). It includes text-based scenarios and socio-demographics, behavior, and farm characteristics pre-FSE questionnaire. The sample comprises full-time and part-time German farmers managing arable land or grassland, excluding livestock-only and specialized/permanent crop farms.

Speaker: Ms Carla Erismann (ZALF)

Session Block: 3B DCE Farmers

Convener: Lotte Muller (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (IVM))

23 Farmers' Preferences for Alternative Animal Feed: Evidence for Developing a Regional Circular Bioeconomy

The transition to sustainable livestock systems is crucial for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and enhancing resilience in agricultural landscapes. Alternative feed sources, such as residue-based and insect-based feed alternatives, offer a viable solution within the circular bioeconomy framework by repurposing agricultural by-products to improve feed sustainability. However, farmer adoption of these alternatives depends on economic incentives, regulatory considerations, and behavioral responses to policy interventions.
This study seeks to answer the following research questions:
1. What factors influence livestock farmers' preferences for adopting alternative feed options in Costa Rica?
2. Do farmers prioritize economic, regulatory, operational, or environmental attributes when making decisions about feed adoption?
3. Does gain or loss framing influence farmers' willingness to adopt residue-based or insect-based feed options?
This research applies a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to assess livestock farmers' preferences for alternative feed options. The experiment evaluates trade-offs across economic, regulatory, operational, and environmental attributes. Additionally, gain and loss framing is incorporated to analyze how farmers' behavioral responses shape their decision-making.
Preliminary findings suggest that cost reduction and feed availability are primary drivers of farmers' choices, while sanitary registration and GHG reduction play a secondary role in decision-making. However, these preferences vary depending on the type of producer, including farm size and production purpose (dairy, dual-purpose, or meat production). These insights provide policy-relevant evidence to foster a regional circular bioeconomy by integrating residue-based feed alternatives into livestock systems. Specifically, results highlight the need for targeted economic incentives to enhance the attractiveness of alternative feed options and clear regulatory frameworks to increase confidence in novel feed sources.
Furthermore, this research provides empirical evidence for business models that improve resource efficiency in livestock farming and contribute to the design of effective policies that encourage sustainable livestock production.

Speaker: Gremary Aza Mengoa (University of Passau)

24 Does a sense of intergenerational commitments modify farmers’ preferences for conservation tillage? Evidence from the choice experiment in Moldova

The expansion of conservation tillage helps to improve soil health in countries affected by the soil erosion, such as the Republic of Moldova.There are several causes of erosion in Moldova, such as insufficient crop rotation (including a decrease in the area of legumes and fodder), deforestation, or improper tillage and fertiliser management. The area affected by erosion in Moldova is about 981,560 ha (including 135,320 ha of highly eroded soil), while the total area of arable land is about 1.7 million ha (Government of the Republic of Moldova, 2020). This means that more than half of the arable land is subject to erosion. Improving soil health has become a government priority in recent years, as evidenced by the introduction of a specific programme to ensure sustainable management of soil resources. However, conservation agriculture practices are not widespread in Moldova so far. It is practised on only about 3% of the sown agricultural area (Cojocaru et al., 2021).Assuming that implementing conservation tillage is a type of long-term pro-environmental decision, such activities can be seen as a combination of reciprocity and altruistic behaviours of farmers, and their responsibility or moral obligation towards other generations. The main objective of this paper was to investigate Moldovan farmers’ preferences for the hypothetical policy scheme designed to promote conservation tillage in the framework of a discrete choice experiment. The heterogeneity of farmers' preferences was explained using the latent concept of a sense of intergenerational commitments (IC) via a hybrid choice model. We found that farmers are reluctant to adopt more advanced forms of conservation tillage (such as zero tillage) and prefer to choose minimum tillage. They positively value financial support (both direct payments and investment subsidies), while the availability of advisory support is not the key factor. We also found that farmers with greater sense of IC have less negative attitudes toward zero tillage and put less positive value on monetary aspects. It seems that these farmers are more driven by moral obligations to society and are less dependent on external support. Policy makers should continue to develop financial incentives to promote conservation agriculture practices but they should also be aware of the important role of farmers and agricultural policy from a social justice perspective.

Speaker: Łukasz Kryszak

25 Effect of climate information on solar irrigation adoption among cocoa farmers in Ghana

Cocoa farmers in Ghana have not widely adoption of solar-powered irrigation, despite their recognized potential to mitigate the impacts of climate change on cocoa production. This study assesses farmers' preferences for climate and loan financing information for solar irrigation adoption. To study this, we conducted a discrete choice experiment with 631 cocoa farmers across regions of Ghana. In four treatment groups, we vary the availability of consecutive dry day and previous season reference information. In all treatment groups, rainfall information is provided alongside forecast variation information and the financial conditions for solar irrigation adoption. Using a mixed logit model, we find that farmers responded strongly to loan payback period, and the fraction of their farm that would be irrigated. This aligns with previous findings that few cocoa farmers in Ghana have access to credit and hence struggle to afford climate change adaptation. Farmers showed limited sensitivity to climate and forecast variation information. We find that they would not be willing to pay for climate services providing rainfall or rainfall variance information. We do not find a significant difference in cocoa farmer preferences for solar irrigation when comparing the treatment groups with and without additional dry days information. Although when consecutive dry days information was provided, we find evidence of it being used during decision making. Using a latent class model, we further evaluate heterogeneity amongst cocoa farmer preferences, where we find that perceptions of climate change, education and stated attribute non-attendance have an effect. This study underscores the need to integrate financial support with climate services to enhance climate adaptation in Ghana’s cocoa sector. Additionally, while uncertainty is a major concern in climate forecasting and prediction for climate services, in the context of adopting solar power, this does not seem to be relevant information to cocoa farmers in Ghana.

Speaker: Lotte Muller (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (IVM))

15:10 Coffee break

General Assembly

17:00 Pau Hana

Join us for some drinks after a busy congress day. Exchange ideas with other REECAP participants and iDiv researchers and get in the mood for our first keynote!

Keynote: Uncovering the Importance of Justice Concerns for Climate Policy Support: Theories, Experiments and Challenges

Convener: Ulf Liebe

18:45 Networking & Dinner

Wednesday 4 June

Keynote: Lessons from measuring climate policy preferences using discrete-choice experiments, contingency rating and factorial surveys

Convener: Sven Anders (University of Alberta)

10:35 Coffee break

Session Block: 4A Other Methods

Convener: Adrian Rothers (Leibniz Universität Hannover)

26 The Relation between Income Inequality and Dietary Diversity

Two challenges faced by many societies around the world are high levels of income inequality and nutritional outcomes, such as the prevalence of overweight, undernutrition, and micronutrient deficiency. Existing research suggests that policy trade-offs exist between the reduction of economic inequality and of adverse nutritional outcomes. However, while the formulation of targeted policies would require a solid understanding of the actual mechanisms that link income inequality to nutritional outcomes, the specific transmission channels underlying this relationship are not clear yet.

One such potential transmission channel is the quality of food intake, and particularly of dietary diversity. While much evidence suggests that balanced, diverse diets are key to healthy nutritional outcomes, no studies to date look at the role of dietary diversity as a potential transmission channel between inequality and nutritional outcomes.

This paper offers a first step to filling this gap by generating insights on the relationship between income inequality and dietary diversity. The empirical analysis relies on a panel dataset of 122 countries with seven observations each from a range of 28 years. Dietary diversity is measured by the weighted Household Dietary Diversity Index, calculated as the number of different food groups regularly consumed by households, weighted by the nutritional quality of the respective food group. To overcome the implicit assumption of constancy in unobserved country characteristics in the conventional fixed effects estimator, we employ the group fixed effects estimator, which allows for the estimation of time-varying unobservables.

The results of the analysis are statistically significant and suggest that in contexts of medium or high levels of inequality (top four quintiles in the inequality range), a decrease in inequality is associated with increases in dietary diversity. The result is intuitive because measures of redistribution lead, ceteris paribus, to increasing incomes for low-income households for whom limited funds may have restricted dietary diversity. In countries with initially low levels of income inequality (lowest quintile of the inequality range), a further decrease in inequality is associated with a decrease in dietary diversity. In those contexts, it is not the low-income households’ funds that restrict dietary diversity, so increasing their incomes would not increase dietary diversity.

Speaker: Antje Risius (Hochschule Fulda//Universität Göttingen)

27 Living Lab for Sustainable Nutrition and Well-Being: A 1-Month Intervention for Students in Europe using a Design-Thinking Process

Sustainable nutrition plays a crucial role in achieving, both personal well-being and environmental health. However, students often face barriers in adopting alternative dietary habits due to cultural, social, economic and logistical challenges. This study explores the impact of a 1-Month Living Lab intervention on students’ nutrition behaviors, well-being, lifestyle and attitudes toward sustainability, using a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative cohort assessments with qualitative observations and reflective dietary protocols.
The intervention begins with a pre-intervention workshop, featuring an impulse presentation about benefits and challenges to enhanced well-being. Kick-starting with a reflective phase, indicating self- and external help and pointing towards the synergies between sustainable nutrition and personal health, participants are guided through a design-thinking approach to find solutions for themselves. Participants complete an initial assessment of their dietary habits, lifestyle, and environmental attitudes. Through a co-creation process, they define personalized sustainability goals, aiming to integrate healthier and more sustainable eating behaviors into their daily routines.
During the intervention, participants implement their goals while tracking their nutrition choices and well-being through self-monitoring methods (e.g., digital food diaries, reflection prompts). Social engagement strategies, such as shared cooking experiences and sustainable meal challenges, encourage motivation and behavior change. An observation protocol is used to analyze patterns in food choices, barriers to sustainable nutrition, and adaptation strategies.
At the end of the intervention, participants present prototype solutions—such as meal planning strategies or behavioral nudging concepts—followed by a post-intervention assessment (FFQ, well-being scales) and focus group discussions. The study not only evaluates changes in dietary habits but also examines the interplay between sustainable nutrition and well-being, investigating how healthier and more environmentally friendly food choices can enhance overall mental health. The findings aim to inform scalable and participatory behavior change models that promote both individual well-being and planetary health in student communities.

Speaker: Hannah Schöneberg (Hochschule Fulda)

28 A narrative perspective on farmer identities

Identities receive considerable research attention as an explanatory factor for farmers’ willingness to engage in agri-environmental practices or schemes, and as a lever to increase this willingness. To date, research has mostly focused on identifying a small set of identities, such as productivists or conservationists. These identities are mostly descriptive snapshots of how farmers see themselves and leave many questions open: How do they develop? What are core beliefs and experiences? How do different identities “feel”? In this project, we propose a narrative perspective on farmer identities as a first step to answer these questions and to fully realize the potential of an identity perspective for agrienvironmental policy.

Research on narrative identity is concerned with the stories that people tell about (aspects of or events in) their lives. Two premises are important. First, identity narratives are individuals’ subjective constructions rather than objective reality: The same sequence of events can be told as very different stories. Second, the stories that people tell themselves are assumed to have causal impact on their experiences and behavior in new situations.

We are currently planning a survey with farmers in seven European countries. We aim for a sample size of N = 450. However, data will be collected between March and July, so it is currently unclear how much data we will have collected and analyzed by then. In this survey, we will study farmers’ narrative identities in terms of how they see themselves and which factors and experiences have shaped who they are as farmers. The resulting text data will be coded in terms of recurring stories and psychological properties. Stories are coded bottom-up and consist of plots that link specific actors and events in a coherent way. Psychological properties are coded quantitatively based on established manuals and include aspects like the affective quality of a narrative identity, its affective trajectory, or the manifestation of agency in a farmer’s narrative.

Lastly, the coded features of farmers’ narrative identities will be used for an in-depth description and comparison with farmer identities portrayed in previous research, including productivists, conservationists, innovators, traditionalists, diversifier, and pragmatists, which we measure more conventionally with closed-ended survey items. In the future, we hope to expand on this perspective to zoom in on the mechanisms linking farmer identity and agrienvironmental practices and, where appropriate, to re-narrate farmer identities in a way that reduces barriers to their adoption.

Speaker: Adrian Rothers (Leibniz Universität Hannover)

Session Block: 4B Social Norms

Convener: MARIA ESPINOSA (universidad de sevilla)

29 Combined social norms: when meters matter !

In France, around one in five households has a connected water meter and the aim is to double this number by 2030 (TACTIS 2023), while over 95% of the French population already has a connected electricity meter. Despite their limitations (privacy concerns, time and maintenance, ...), smart meters can provide consumers with better information on resource consumption. Many studies show that smart meters can significantly contribute to reducing energy and water consumption, especially when they show the average consumption of similar households, thereafter named "descriptive social norm".
Providing social norm information can decrease consumption, but also generate a non-desirable boomerang effect. A destructive effect occurs when a low consumer increases his consumption to get closer to others. A constructive effect occurs when conformist high consumers reduce their consumption to get closer to the others. The reconstructive effect corresponds to the situation where anti-conformist consumers consume less resource to deviate from the others.
Combining information on social norms with other tools has been shown to be efficient, but combining different social norms is still understudied. Literature on green compensatory effects and moral licensing shows that when individuals take a positive environmental action, they easily sacrifice another action, but this remains to be studied in combination with the impact of social normal information.
Our study aims to provide new insights into the complementarity and substitution effects of combining social norms, i.e. providing information on peers' consumption of several resources. Here, we focus on the effects on water and electricity consumption, using both a theoretical model and an online experimental survey on French energy and water consumers. To do so, each respondent faces 8 hypothetical situations in which they have to declare their level of consumption of water and energy, in different information settings regarding the consumption of similar households and different resource prices scenarios.
While water smart meters are being massively developed in France, our results will provide insights to policy makers and resources distributors on how to inform consumers in a context of energy and water scarcity. They will shed light on how to target individuals in order to benefit from the constructive or reconstructive effects of social norms. Pilot data will be available by the time of the conference.

Speaker: Marianne Lefebvre (Angers University GRANEM)

30 From Farm to Fork? How Public Perceptions Shape Attitudes Toward Supply Chain Income Redistribution

Public dissatisfaction with the distribution of consumer expenditure across the food supply chain—spanning input providers, farmers, processors, distributors, and retailers—is well-documented and indicates public discontent over perceived allocation inequalities. However, the psychological and ethical foundations of these perceptions remain underexplored. This study examines how individuals assess inequality in the food supply chain, focusing on cognitive biases such as zero-sum thinking, moral concerns over coercion and exploitation, and suspicions of monopolistic practices and power imbalances. To investigate these factors, we conducted an experimental survey with treatment manipulations and a one-and-a-half contingent valuation approach, where participants first evaluated a reference price before stating their willingness to pay for redistribution initiatives. Our study draws on data from over a thousand participants in two distinct socio-economic and cultural contexts (Germany and the USA). By identifying key drivers of public concern, we contribute to a broader understanding of how people construct beliefs about agriculture and the food supply chain. Our findings offer theoretical advancements and practical insights for designing socially responsive agricultural policies that address public concerns while minimizing inefficient price interventions.

Speaker: Samuel Brea (Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO))

31 How Do Extreme Weather Events Reshape Social Norms? Insights from a Coordination Game with Spanish Farmers

Social norms have been identified as a strong predictor of behavior. In this experiment, we elicit social norms by adapting the Krupka & Weber (2013) design via an incentive-compatible coordination game. Respondents are presented with a scenario and potential actions related to agricultural practices in irrigation, pesticides and manure management. For each action, respondents are asked to guess how the majority of farmers would rate this behavior (i.e. socially appropriate or inappropriate according to a majority). In a between-subjects design, we frame the scenario as either an extreme or a normal year. Preliminary results from a sample of 182 farmers show that 49% of the respondents were able to match the shared social norm at least 8 times with an average of 8.3 (SD = 2.91). Results indicate that, when confronted with a scenario of extreme weather events, there is a statistically significant impact on farmers’ ranking of socially appropriate behaviors in 3 of the 15 statements (2 for water and 1 for pesticides). Further analysis will explore heterogeneity in the social norms regarding the appropriateness and whether they conform to the rule. In addition, regressions will be conducted to assess heterogeneity based on the socio-demographic characteristics.

Speaker: MARIA ESPINOSA (universidad de sevilla)

12:00 Lunch break

iDiv Seminar Series: Bettina Matzdorf

Session Block: 5A Various Methods

Convener: Thomas Burke (University of Göttingen)

32 Bayesian Causal Inference with experimental survey data: an application to the Nutriscore labelling system

This work introduces a foundation modeling strategy that integrates Item Response Theory (IRT) and the potential outcome (PO) framework to estimate the heterogeneous and average treatment effect (HTE and ATE, respectively) of randomly assigned interventions in experimental settings. This approach allows to automatically correct for measurement errors when eliciting individual latent characteristics through multiple Likert scale inquiries, making sure that the resulting uncertainty propagates to the causal estimands of interest. Placing Normal priors on these unobservable features, we show that the distribution of the POs is also Normal, enabling the explicit derivation of posterior predictive distributions for all the counterfactual quantities, which are then used to construct imputation estimators for the HTE and ATE. The latter are validated through simulations, which highlight how the proposed approach effectively recovers the underlying coefficients at different sample sizes under weakly informative priors. We implement the proposed methodology in a simple case study in which we evaluate the impact of a negative Nutriscore (NS) label on the Perceive Healthiness (PH) of a hard cheese product. Using a representative sample of Italian and Dutch consumers, we estimate a negative overall effect of low NS ranking on respondents’ PH. Moreover, we use HTEs to address treatment effect heterogeneity at different levels of predetermined (exogenous) covariates representing the main demographic characteristics of our sample. Using a simple regression tree fir to the posterior mean of the individual-level treatment effects, our results suggest that middle-aged individuals with no child tend to exhibit, on average, the sharpest drop in PH when confronted with a negative NS.

Speaker: Alessandro Varacca (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)

33 Behavioral Experiments to Reduce Food Loss and Waste: A Meta-Analysis and a Field Study

Food loss and food waste put pressure on society, the environment and the economy. A variety of experimental interventions to reduce food loss and waste are conducted, as well as several review studies. However, it remains unclear which intervention is the most effective and what characteristics contribute to this. As there is an urgent need to reduce food loss and waste, it is important to know how this can be done in an effective way. This study consists of two parts: a review of previously conducted experimental interventions to reduce food loss and waste (done) and a field experiment (to do).
The first objective of the study was to find out which intervention characteristics within pretest-posttest-control experiments to reduce food loss and waste are the most effective, considering the whole food supply chain. This is done by making use of a systematic literature review, followed by a meta-regression. Although there has been an increase in food loss and waste research in the past decade, it seems that behavioral experimental interventions with a pretest-posttest-control design are still not common practice, hence twenty studies meet all inclusion criteria. In addition, all included studies were performed in the last stages of the food supply chain (i.e. restaurants, retail and households), with great emphasis on consumers. The meta-regression uncovered that experimental behavioral interventions are effective (dPPC=-0.227) in reducing food loss and waste, however the type of intervention and the characteristics of the experiment (e.g. utilizing a theoretical framework, context of experiment, duration of the study) are important in this. Moreover, only a few studies report on long-term effects; and for these, the meta-regression uncovered that the effect of an intervention fades away over time, though the longevity of behavior change is the most important especially in habitual behavior such as food handling.
The second endeavor of the study is to test a field experiment on reducing food loss and waste within companies by measuring food loss and waste on site. Additionally, by making use of surveys it will also be estimated if spillovers occur in the household context. Based on the findings of the meta-regression and previously conducted food loss and waste measures, it is opted to target food processing companies and retailers instead of consumers. This will be done in collaboration with NGOs and/or companies. The experiment makes use of a pretest-posttest-control design, with long-term follow-up.

Speaker: Gwendy Bonte (KU Leuven | UAntwerp)

34 Pro-environmental behaviors in urban China: Information senders, social norms, and personal values

China's consumption has become more carbon-intensive in recent decades, making it the world’s largest CO2 emitter. However, with China aiming for carbon neutrality by 2060, a key question remains: How can a low-carbon lifestyle transformation be achieved? In present-day China, urban individuals under the age of 35 have the highest average carbon footprints and are strongly influenced by social media. Simultaneously, China takes a top-down approach to climate actions – it has been primarily driven by national policies, such as the emission trading scheme.

In a controlled between-subject online experiment, we examine whether a social media message that emphasizes the individual role in climate actions influences individual’s incentivized pro-environmental behaviors (treatment message). Pro-environmental behavior is measured in two actions consisting of (1) donations for tree planting and (2) travel choices for 10 domestic mid-distance trips, in which participants each choose between the more expensive, environmentally-friendly train or the cheaper, less environmentally-friendly airplane. By varying five sender types in the treatment message (private vs. public: national vs. international, government vs. academia), we further investigate potential sender-type influences on individual pro-environmental behaviors. Other explored questions relate to the consistency between experiment behavior in the two actions and how sender types affect pluralistic ignorance, perceived climate emotions, and perceived action-specific effectiveness as a climate protection measure. Further, we examine how sender type, climate change beliefs, perceived behavior and perceived social norms regarding a climate action-oriented Chinese population, as well as Schwartz’ personal values influence stated pro-environmental intentions.

The study sample includes 1500 individuals aged 18-34 and live in two large cities in China: Peking and Shanghai. These two cities are interesting in our treatment context as they are similar in population size but different in their political and international orientation: While Peking is the political center of China, Shanghai is the international center of the country. Our sample is representative regarding city, gender, and age groups. Data are collected as an online experiment in Qualtrics and recruitment is conducted by China’s largest data collection platform WJX (https://www.wjx.cn/).

Our targeted sample size is adequate to detect small effect sizes (Cohen’s d of 0.2), ensuring sufficient statistical power. This study provides valuable insights into what can (or cannot) drive individual pro-environmental actions among the young urban Chinese population. This is crucial for identifying factors that can accelerate the transformation towards a carbon-neutral lifestyle in China, influencing global emissions worldwide.

Speaker: Laura Moritz (University of Trento)

35 The Assessment of Poultry Sounds to Enhance One Health Interventions

Motivation and Research Questions

Intensive meat production drives substantial public health impacts, making One Health (the intersection of human, animal, and environmental health) a pertinent paradigm for interventions. Correspondingly, sustainable food transitions focus on changing husbandry practices of animals in the food value chain in concert with dietary changes on the consumer side. Agricultural workers intuitively learn to understand flock behavior, particularly sounds, as part of biosecurity best practices. This research design is intended to assess whether integrating poultry vocalizations into biosecurity educational materials imparts changes to worker behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge, compared with a traditional training course. It is hypothesized that audio-based training to distinguish between healthy and stressed states of poultry vocalizations may improve worker reasoning associations between poultry’s welfare, their environments, and animal health interventions. It may also provide clues on overall attitudinal shifts to meat consumption and industrial livestock’s impact on the environment that can be applied to consumer interventions.

Study Design and Expected Results

The study will take the form of a randomized control trial of poultry agricultural workers. The online 30-minute biosecurity educational program will take two forms: one with an animal sound training component and the other with a written description of animal monitoring. Participants from each participant pool will be randomly selected into one of the two interventions or a control group. If in an intervention group, participants will be directed to take the online biosecurity course, with or without an audio training. Those in the control group will instead take a 30 minute course on occupational safety before receiving the survey. After completing the course, they will receive an assessment to ascertain overall biosecurity knowledge. They will also receive a set of questions on their dietary patterns, attitudes on the food system’s contribution to environmental impacts, and personal health status (i.e. body mass index, self-assessment on physical/mental health).

Data collection will use Unipark to administer and collect survey responses. Participants will be recruited through flyers at farm supply stores, outreach through government agricultural service offices, veterinary networks, and word-of-mouth. For poultry sounds, we will use existing audio files used in machine learning papers. We intend to analyze our treatment and follow-up results using an Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA), due to multiple dependent variables. The results will be used for additional examination of the usage of poultry vocalizations, particularly consumer interventions.

Speaker: Thomas Burke (University of Göttingen)

Session Block: 5B Various methods

Convener: Thi Thanh Thuong Dang (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)

36 Farmers’ Acceptability and Perceived Efficacy of Green Nudges: A Best-Worst Scaling experiment in Europe

The EU agri-environmental policies are increasingly pushing farmers toward more sustainable production practices. However, changing farmers’ behavior is challenging. Traditional regulatory approaches and subsidies alone often prove insufficient, leading to growing interest in behavioral interventions such as nudging to encourage sustainable agricultural practices. While research has extensively examined the effectiveness of green nudges in agriculture, little is known about farmers’ acceptability and perceived efficacy of these behavioral interventions.
This study addresses this gap by investigating farmers’ acceptance and perceived effectiveness of various green nudges designed to promote sustainable farming practices across Europe, while also examining whether behavioral factors influence these preferences. Using a Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) online experiment, data was collected from over 500 farmers across five countries—Belgium, Italy, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland, and France —covering different farming sectors, including arable crops, perennial crops, and livestock farming.
Findings from a random parameter logit model reveal that not all nudges are equally accepted or perceived as effective. Reminder-based nudges emerged as the most acceptable and effective, whereas social-norm nudges were consistently among the least favored. Interestingly, a strong correlation was found between acceptance and perceived efficacy. By shedding light on farmers’ attitudes toward green nudges, this research advances the literature on behavioral interventions in agriculture and provides valuable insights for designing more effective agri-environmental policies.

Speaker: Jesus Barreiro-Hurle (Joint Research Centre of the European Commission)

37 Risk, Time and Water: Linking Smallholders’ Preferences to Irrigation Scarcity in Kyrgyzstan

Traditional economic models assume stable preferences, but growing literature suggests that exposure to dramatic shocks affects economic preferences. In regions where irrigation water availability is unpredictable, farmers frequently adjust their risk-taking and intertemporal choices. Despite extensive research on climate shocks, the effects of recurring irrigation shortages and drought events on farmers’ risk and time preferences remain understudied, particularly in Central Asia, where agriculture is dependent on irrigation water.
Our study addresses this gap by investigating whether farmers’ risk and time preferences differ with respect to water availability and variability. Specifically, we examine whether farmers prone to irrigation water scarcity and droughts have greater risk aversion, loss aversion, probability weighting, impatience, and present bias compared to those operating under water abundance. Additionally, we extend the study of economic preferences to Central Asia, where agriculture heavily depends on seasonal irrigation, providing implications for agricultural policy, climate adaptation, and rural development.
We conducted lab-in-the-field experiments with 425 smallholders conducted in October 2024 in two village districts of Jalal-Abad province, Kyrgyzstan, using experimental design of Tanaka et al. (2010). One district has no problems with water supply, while another is prone to frequent water shortages. Risk and time preferences were measured using cumulative prospect theory and quasi-hyperbolic discounting. Socio-demographic data were collected via a post-experimental survey.
The results reveal that farmers experiencing frequent annual irrigation water shortages tend to have higher risk aversion and loss aversion. However, those who faced irrigation water shortages in the past five years and those who encountered more severe water scarcity and drought in the past three years have both lower risk and loss aversion. Experience of frequent annual irrigation water shortages is nor related with time preference parameters. However, farmers who faced irrigation water shortages in the past five years show a higher discount rate (more time-inconsistent) and present bias (more impatient). Similarly, farmers who experienced more severe water scarcity and drought in the past three years have a higher discount rate. In contrast, experience of a higher diversity of extreme weather events in the past five years is associated with a lower discount rate (more patience).
These findings contribute to the broader discussion on relationship between farmers’ preferences and climate-induced resource variability. By demonstrating that farmers exposed to prolonged water scarcity exhibit distinct patterns of risk aversion, loss aversion, and time inconsistency, our study emphasizes the need to integrate behavioral insights into agricultural and climate adaptation policies.

Speaker: Marlen Tynaliev (Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO))

38 Process vs. Product : the influence of different labelling scenarios on consumer’s purchase intention for NGTs

Motivation and Research Question
There is ongoing debate about the optimal labeling strategy for introducing NGTs to the market. This study addresses this gap by investigating how different labeling scenarios affect consumer acceptance of NGTs, using a between-subjects experiment. We compare process-based labeling (describing production methods) and product-based labeling (highlighting product innovations and benefits). Additionally, we assess the impact of label placement—front-of-pack (FOP) vs. back-of-pack (BOP)—on consumer preferences.
We address the following research questions: (i) Does consumers purchase intention differ on the basis of the labeling formats used (process versus product labelling)? (ii) Does consumer purchase intention change if different types of information about the biotechnology process is presented on the FOP or BOP?
Methods
We conducted an online survey with 8,808 consumers from Germany and Spain. After completing demographic questions, participants were randomly assigned to one of 11 experimental conditions, each featuring a can of chopped tomatoes with a different label. They were then asked to indicate their purchase intention for the product. All cans displayed identical baseline information. Treatments followed a sequential design: starting with a conventional product, we tested ‘Reduced pesticide use’ (environmental benefit) and ‘Organic’ (benchmark), then added GMO and NGT attributes, varying their placement (BOP vs. FOP + BOP). Finally, we combined ‘Reduced pesticide use’ with biotech attributes. We estimated the impact of the different labeling conditions on consumers' purchase intention by calculating the average treatment effect (ATE) using full regression adjustment (FRA) comparing Germany and Spain, as well as younger and older participants (18-34 vs. 34-75 years old).
Results and Lessons Learned (for the design of agri-environmental policies)
Labeling products as GMOs or NGTs on the BOP significantly reduces purchase intention in both countries, especially among older consumers, with little difference between labels. An NGT label may not improve sales under mandatory rules that group both. Biotech labels on the FOP lower purchase intention further, hitting GMOs harder. However, adding an environmental claim on the front helps offset the negative impact of an NGT label, suggesting it’s more easily mitigated than GMOs. Younger consumers are slightly more open to NGTs, experiencing a smaller drop in purchase intention but remaining largely indifferent to eco-claims. Despite potential sustainability benefits, NGTs are still less favored than conventional products. While eco-friendly messaging may justify offering NGTs, it may not boost sales enough for retailers to stock them, risking the same EU resistance GMOs have faced.

Speaker: Mirta Casati (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)

39 Factors influencing dairy farmers’ participation in the Income Stabilisation Tool: Evidence from Northern Italy

The Income Stabilisation Tool (IST) was introduced in the 2014 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as a mutual fund to compensate farmers for income losses due to price risk, distinguishing it from other mutual funds that primarily cover production losses. However, IST participation remains low across the EU member states. This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion on the effectiveness of publicly supported risk management tools by exploring the factors that drive farmers’ participation in the IST. We analyse the drivers for dairy farmers to participate in a sectorial cow-milk IST, implemented by two dairy cooperatives in Brescia, one of Italy’s most important dairy provinces, with high-density livestock systems.

The analysis combines an extended secondary database with survey data to provide additional insight into farmers’ perceptions of policy changes and their agro-ecological characteristics. Based on farm location, the dataset is then merged with daily weather data from Agri4cast, which includes key meteorological variables such as temperature, rainfall and vapour pressure. We employ a Linear Probability Model (LPM) to examine the determinants of IST participation. To assess the robustness of our results, we conduct multicollinearity diagnostics, alternative model specifications (logit and probit), and bootstrap resampling to ensure the stability and reliability of our findings.

Our results show that socio-economic and risk factors are more strongly associated with IST adoption than agro-ecological factors. In particular, education plays an important role in IST subscription, with farmers having a lower education level being significantly associated with a higher participation rate. Income stabilisation through direct payments acts as a substitute for IST, while farms experiencing more frequent weather stress show significant association with lower IST adoption. This suggests the need for a more holistic approach to promoting novel risk management tools such as IST to ensure that they remain attractive and accessible to farmers. Italian farmers’ preferences for specific features of risk management tools remain an underexplored area in the literature, hence, it is crucial to investigate which features drive adoption and which barriers hinder participation.

Speaker: Thi Thanh Thuong Dang (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)

15:30 Coffee break

Session Block: 6A Validity of Expriments

Convener: Thomas Rellensmann (University Osnabrück)

40 Pre-registration for stated preferences studies: Potentials, challenges, and a template

There is growing concern about the validity and transparency of research results in Economics and other social sciences. While development economists have quickly adopted the idea of pre-registration for randomized controlled trials to address one part of the problem, the validity and credibility of stated preferences methods remain contested. Critics claim that stated preferences studies fail to provide realistic welfare estimates for cost benefit analysis and litigation. In this article, we critically appraise arguments in favour of pre-registration in Environmental Economics as a means to increase validity and credibility of welfare estimates elicited from stated preferences studies. We argue that pre-registration can safeguard against political influence; non-standard statistical tests or features of a study design can be justified ex-ante; pre-registration may serve as a disciplining tool to limit researcher degrees of freedom in the application of Discrete Choice Experiments, an stated preferences method which has seen a rapid increase in available econometric modelling options. In a continuation of these arguments, we evaluate features of pre-registration platforms to explore avenues of implementing pre-registration for stated preferences studies in Environmental Economics. Tying best practice guidelines in stated preferences research to pre-registration can enhance the validity and quality of research results and facilitate a much needed shift towards the integration and meta-analysis of multiple studies. We conclude that scholarly associations in Environmental Economics should play an active role in lobbying for pre-registration platforms that account for the specific needs of stated preferences research.

Speaker: Julian Sagebiel (iDiv)

41 Comparing the internal and external validity of economic experiments to inform the CAP

Economic experiments are increasingly used for the ex-ante evaluation of agri-environmental policies. Such experiments typically rely on one of three subject pools: standard subject pool students, agricultural students, or farmers. While experiments with farmers are often considered more relevant for policymaking due to their higher external validity, the shift from students to agricultural students or farmers often necessitates changes in experimental settings and protocols. For instance, experiments with professionals frequently move from controlled lab environments to classroom or online settings, which can impact self-selection, attrition, experimental control, and participant engagement. Despite the conceptual recognition of these challenges (e.g., Roe & Just, 2009), no experimental study in agricultural economics has systematically quantified the effects of using different subject pools and experiment types. Our study addresses this gap by comparing data from an economic experiment conducted (i) with farmers online, (ii) with agricultural students online and in classrooms, and (iii) with standard subject pool students online and in a laboratory. Our aim is to provide insights into potential trade-offs between internal and external validity when designing economic experiments to inform the CAP. Data collection is ongoing, and we expect to present preliminary results at the Congress.

Speaker: Thomas Rellensmann (University Osnabrück)

Session Block: 6B DCE

Convener: Jesus Barreiro-Hurle (European Commission - Joint Research Center)

42 Cash vs. electronic payment mode and the validity of experimental results: evidence from an incentive compatible DCE with information treatment

Economic experiments are commonly used to study the behaviour of economic actors and generate policy insights (Levitt & List, 2009). A key concern in these experiments is incentive compatibility, ensuring that participants make decisions based on their true preferences, allowing researchers to derive valid conclusions on real-world behaviour. In many experiments, incentive compatibility is achieved by requiring participants to pay for a randomly selected choice (Lusk & Schroeder, 2004). Paying for the binding choice with personal money has been found to strengthen incentive compatibility (Moser, et al., 2014), but is not always feasible, particularly in low-income settings (e.g., Alemu & Olsen, 2018). An alternative approach is to provide a participation fee, paid in cash or electronically, from which participants must pay for their choice (e.g., Lusk & Schroeder, 2004). While this approach is widely used, little attention has been given to whether the mode of payment (cash vs. electronic) affects decisions.
Earlier studies have found that electronic money is spent more easily than cash (Prelec and Simester, 2001) with differences in mental accounting, cognitive distance or temporal separation possibly explaining these results. Studies on donations find public giving to be higher than private giving (Alpizar et al., 2008) and donations in cash to be higher than in electronic form (Soetevent, 2005). These studies suggest that people may perceive cash as more visible and tangible, creating a stronger sense of sacrifice and/or giving a stronger signal of abiding to the social norm. While these studies suggest that payment mode might indeed matter for consumers' price sensitivity and participant expectancy bias, no evidence exists on how this may impact experimental practice.
This study investigates how payment mode (cash vs electronic) affects preferences of consumers in a DCE with information treatment. We use data from a DCE among maize consumers in Nigeria with a random information treatment on food safety risks, comparing preferences for tested and untested maize. About half of participants were paid in cash, and half in electronic form. Our preliminary findings suggest that, in the control setting, consumers are more price sensitive when paid in cash compared to electronic. In the information treatment group, however, consumers with cash payments show lower price sensitivity and higher preference for the "recommended" (tested-safe) maize options. We discuss the potential psychological mechanisms behind these results and the implications for the validity and robustness of findings in economic experiments more broadly.

Speaker: Mr Akinwehinmi Oluwagbenga (University of Göttingen)

43 The role of behavioural factors in farmers’ preferences for practice-based, result-based and hybrid payment schemes.

Setting the achievement of environmental objectives, instead of the adoption of specific management practices, as a contractual requirements of agri-environment payment schemes such as agri-environmental and climate schemes (AECS) in Europe, has been proposed as solution to improve their effectiveness (Wuepper and Huber 2021). Farmers’ participation in these payment schemes being voluntary, their impact on the environment relies in part on farmers’ willingness to participate. Understanding farmers preferences for alternative scheme designs is therefore an important part of their ex ante evaluation, as these preferences can largely impact the benefit-cost ratio of these interventions by influencing the level of payment required by farmers to participate. So far, the literature on farmers’ preferences for result-based schemes and practice-based schemes shows that farmers’ preferences for alternative designs of AECS are heterogeneous between farmers (e.g. Niskanen et al. 2021, Sumrada et al. 2022, Gars et al. 2024). This paper aims to investigate the sources of this heterogeneity. We build on the discrete choice experiment data from Gars et al. (2024), collected on 731 farmers in the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden. We investigate the role of time, risk and environmental preferences (perception of environmental issues and change, awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility) as well as confidence in monitoring and perceived control (ability to adopt practices and ability to achieve environmental objectives) over the schemes’ requirements on farmers' preferences for alternative scheme designs. Since these preferences are not directly observable, we use a hybrid choice model, which models these preferences as latent variables. These latent variables influence both farmers’ preferences for alternative scheme designs expressed through their choices in the DCE and their responses to statements used as indicators of preferences in the survey (7 points likert scale). The data analysis is ongoing and first results will be presented. Alternative hybrid choice models are tested and compared using goodness of fit indicators. These show, so far, that higher levels in confidence in monitoring and in one’s perceived ability to fulfil the contract’s requirements increase farmers’ willingness to practice-based, results-based and hybrid schemes without altering preferences between the designs.

Speakers: Dr Jesus Barreiro-Hurlé (Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Seville, Spain), Laure Kuhfuss (UMR SMART, INRAE, Rennes, France)

44 Consumer preferences for sustainable acquaculture under imperfect information

An often overlooked negative externality of aquaculture relates to the impact of fish escapees on wild populations. Following an escape, fish bought as wild could de facto be an escapee. This paper investigates how this risk affects consumer welfare testing the presence of preferences reflecting prospect theory and endowment effects.

We implement a pre-registered between subject experiment applying contingent valuation to elicit WTP for a fish that is guaranteed as wild and WTA to accept the risk of the fish that is purchased as wild could come from an escape. The experiment was implemented online with 1000 fish consumers in two coastal regions located in South Eastern Spain. Both the total sample and the two sub-groups are representative of the target population.

Our results show a significant difference between both approaches. First, the share of individuals accepting the valuation scenario was much higher in the WTP setting than in the WTA. While 46.3% of the sample declared a positive WTP for guaranteeing that the fish was indeed wild, more than 70% was willing to assume the risk if the price was lower. Second the values obtained are significantly higher when asking for WTA than when asking for WTP (WTP = 1.4 Euros per fish; WTA = 5.7 Euro per fish).

Speaker: Jesus Barreiro-Hurle (European Commission - Joint Research Center)

Closing: Wrap up

18:30 Brewery Tour

🍺 Get an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the Ratskeller brewery, where master brewers craft the renowned Lotteraner Kellerbiere. The tour concludes with a guided tasting session featuring four specialty beers (Helles, Dunkles, Helles Weizen, and the famous Leipziger Gose – each in a 0.1L glass).

19:00 Conference Dinner

Thursday 5 June

Excursion: Global Change Experimental Facility (GCEF) and Ecotron in Bad Lauchstädt

08:45 Meeting point at iDiv
09:00 Departure to Bad Lauchstädt
10:00 – 12:00 Guided tour through the experimental fields and Ecotron lab
13:00 Return to Leipzig
14:00 Arrival at iDiv