SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Akaichi, Faiçal; Gil, Jose Maria; Nayga, Rodolfo M., Jr..

Replaced with revised version of paper 06/28/10

A note on the performance measure of conservation auctions

Palavras-chave: Multi-unit Vickrey auctions; Organic milk; Information; Agribusiness; Consumer/Household Economics; Demand and Price Analysis; Marketing; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; C91; D44.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/60982

Latacz-Lohmann, Uwe; Schilizzi, Steven.

We argue that previous assessments of discriminatory-price conservation auctions may have systematically overestimated their performance relative to uniform-payment schemes due to an inappropriate counterfactual comparison. We demonstrate that the cost curve (and not the bid curve) is the relevant supply curve when a uniform payment is offered and provide a theoretically rigorous counterfactual based on that insight. We estimate that the performance of BushTender may have been overrated by more than 50%.

The Value of Private Risk Versus the Value of Public Risk: An Experimental Analysis of the Johannesson et al. Conjecture

Palavras-chave: Auctions; Procurement; Tenders; Conservation; Economic experiments; Model validation; Plus: assessment method; Agricultural policy; Environmental policy; Market-based instruments; Environmental Economics and Policy; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; C91; C92; D44; Q24; Q28.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/100885

Messer, Kent D.; Poe, Gregory L.; Schulze, William D..

In 1996 Johannesson et al. published a paper in this journal entitled “The Value of Private Safety versus the Value of Public Safety.” Based on preliminary evidence from a hypothetical contingent valuation study, these authors argue that consumers behave as “pure altruists” and reject the notion of paternalistic preferences for safety in a coercive tax setting. These pure altruists consider the cost of a program that might be imposed on other voters when they decide whether to vote for or against public safety programs. The authors conclude that further empirical research in this area is warranted. This paper presents a set of laboratory economics experiments to test Johannesson et al.’s conjecture under controlled conditions in which participants face an...

Trust and Electronic Commerce in the Agrifood Sector. A Trust Model and Experimental Experiences

Palavras-chave: Altruism; Risk; Voting; Public goods; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; Risk and Uncertainty; D81; D64; H41; C91; C92; D72.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/51141

Fritz, Melanie; Hausen, Tobias; Schiefer, Gerhard; Canavari, Maurizio.

Opportunities coming from electronic commerce provide interesting support options for the Agrifood sector. However, due to the product specific information asymmetry in the agrifood sector, the anonymity of the medium creates a lack of trust increasing transaction costs to engage in e-commerce. This paper develops a trust model for electronic commerce in the agrifood industry allowing for the analysis of trust determinants in traditional agrifood transaction relationships and their transfer to appropriate trust determinants in the e-commerce environment. First experimental results validating the suitability of the model to derive appropriate electronic trust generating elements for a given agrifood transaction environment are presented.

Comparison of the Investment Behavior of German and Kazakhstani Farmers: an Experimental Approach

Palavras-chave: Transaction costs; Asymmetric and private information; Laboratory experiment; Electronic commerce; Trust; Agribusiness; D23; D82; C91.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/24742

Tubetov, Dulat; Maart, Syster Christin; Musshoff, Oliver.

Revised April 2012

Tipo: Working Paper

Palavras-chave: Experimental Economics; Investment Timing; Real Options; Kazakhstan; Germany; Agricultural Finance; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; International Development; Risk and Uncertainty; C91; D03; D81; D92.

Ano: 2012

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/122422

Evaluating conservation auctions with limited information: the policy maker’s predicament

Schilizzi, Steven; Latacz-Lohmann, Uwe.

Buying environmental services from private landholders using tendering mechanisms are usually subject to a budget constraint. Auction theory has mostly focused on target-constrained auctions and is less well developed for this type of auction. This paper examines a theoretical model specifically developed for budget-constrained tenders and assesses its capacity to predict tendering performance under information limitations typical of those found in field applications. But this assessment cannot be done without complementing the model with controlled laboratory experiments. Subject to their external validity, we find that the model is able to make the correct policy recommendation when comparing the tender to an equivalent fixed price scheme, even when the...

On the Micro-Foundations of Money: The Capitol Hill Baby-Sitting Co-op

Palavras-chave: Auctions; Procurement; Tenders; Conservation; Economic experiments; Model validation; Environmental Economics and Policy; Land Economics/Use; C91; C92; D44; Q24; Q28.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/100884

Hens, Thorsten; Schenk-Hoppe, Klaus Reiner; Vogt, Bodo.

This paper contributes to the micro-foundation of money in centralized markets with idiosyncratic uncertainty. It shows existence of stationary monetary equilibria and ensures that there is an optimum quantity of money. The rational solution of our model is compared with actual behavior in a laboratory experiment. The experiment gives support to the theoretical approach.

Closing down the Farm: An Experimental Analysis of Disinvestment Timing

Palavras-chave: Micro foundations of money; Optimal; Quantity of money; Financial Economics; C73; C91; C92; E40; E41; E42.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/26320

Maart, Syster Christin; Musshoff, Oliver; Odening, Martin; Schade, Christian.

Agrarian structures are often characterized by some kind of economic inertia. It is particularly puzzling why unprofitable farms persist over time instead of being sold. In this paper we analyze the exit decision of farmers using the real options approach. The validity of the real options theory is assessed by means of laboratory experiments. Our results show that real options models are able to predict actual disinvestment decisions better than traditional investment theory. Nevertheless, the observed disinvestment reluctance was even more pronounced as predicted by theory. This finding suggests the inclusion of bounded rationality into normative disinvestment models.

Social Preferences and Voting: An Exploration Using a Novel Preference Revealing Mechanism

Palavras-chave: Disinvestment; Real Options; Experimental Economics; Agricultural Finance; Farm Management; C91; D81; D92.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/114375

Messer, Kent D.; Poe, Gregory L.; Rondeau, Daniel; Schulze, William D.; Vossler, Christian A..

Public referenda are frequently used to determine the provision of public goods. As public programs have distributional consequences, a compelling question is what role if any social preferences have on voting behavior. This paper explores this issue using laboratory experiments wherein voting outcomes lead to a known distribution of net benefits across participants. Preferences are elicited using a novel Random Price Voting Mechanism (RPVM), which is a more parsimonious mechanism than dichotomous choice referenda, but gives consistent results. Results suggest that social preferences, in particular a social efficiency motive, lead to economically meaningful deviations from self-interested voting choices and increase the likelihood that welfare-enhancing...

Initial Endowment Effects in Multi-Unit Vickrey Auctions

Palavras-chave: Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; C91; C92; D64; D72; H41.

Ano: 2008

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/51132

Akaichi, Faiçal; Nayga, Rodolfo M., Jr.; Gil, Jose Maria.

We report the result of experiments designed to assess the effect of initial endowments on willingness to pay values elicited from multi-unit Vickrey auctions. Comparing bids from an “endow and upgrade” approach with the “full bidding” approach, we find that the direction of the endowment effect generally depends on the number of endowed units of the conventional product that subjects are willing to give up in exchange for units of the upgraded product. The endowment effect is “reverse” when the number of units that participants are willing to give up is lower or equal to the number of remaining endowed units. However, we generally find an endowment effect when the number of units a participant is willing to give up is higher than the number of remaining...

Expected Utility or Prospect Theory Maximizers? Results from a Structural Model based on Field-experiment Data

Palavras-chave: Endowment effect; Number of units of the endowed product; Multi-unit Vickrey auctions.; Agribusiness; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession; C91; D12; D44.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/103041

Bocqueho, Geraldine; Jacquet, Florence; Reynaud, Arnaud.

We elicit risk preferences of French farmers in a field experimental setting under expected utility theory and cumulative prospect theory. We use two different estimation methods, namely the interval approach and the estimation of a random preference model. On average, farmers are risk averse and loss averse. They also exhibit an inverse S-shaped probability weighting function, meaning that they tend to overweight small probabilities and underweight high probabilities. We infer from our results that CPT explains farmers’ behaviour better than EUT in the context of our experiment. We also investigate how preferences correlate with individual socio-demographic characteristics. We find that education and agricultural innovation are negatively linked with risk...

Market Power in Tradable Emission Markets: A Laboratory Testbed for Emission Trading in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria

Palavras-chave: Risk preferences; Field experiment; Experimental economics; Prospect theory; Risk and Uncertainty; C91; D81; J16; Q12.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/114257

Cason, Timothy N.; Gangadharan, Lata; Duke, Charlotte.

In theory, competitive emission permit markets minimise total abatement cost for any emission ceiling. Permit markets are often imperfectly competitive, however, if they are thin and dominated by large firms. The dominant firm(s) could exercise market power and increase other firms’ costs of pollution control, while reducing their own emission control costs. This paper reports a testbed laboratory experiment to examine whether a dominant firm can exercise market power in a permit market organised using the double auction trading institution. Our parameters approximate the abatement costs of sources in a proposed tradable emissions market for the reduction of nitrogen in the Port Phillip Watershed in Victoria, Australia. We vary across treatments the...

On the Use of Multi-Unit Auctions in Measuring Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Food Products

Palavras-chave: Market Power; Emission Permits; Experiments; Environmental Regulation; Environmental Economics and Policy; C91; Q25; Q28.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/57841

Akaichi, Faiçal; Nayga, Rodolfo M., Jr.; Gil, Jose Maria.

This paper proposes the use of multi-unit auctions in studying consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for food products in a multi-unit shopping scenario. We show how this method can overcome the limitations of single-unit experimental auctions in obtaining useful information related to WTP for not just the first unit but also subsequent units of a product, the demand curve, consumer surplus, the determinants of consumers’ WTP for each auctioned unit, and the effect of potential price discount strategies.

An Experimental Analysis of Compliance in Dynamic Emissions Markets

Palavras-chave: Multi-unit auctions; Willingness to pay; Demand curve; Consumer surplus; Price discounts.; Agribusiness; Consumer/Household Economics; Marketing; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods; C91; D12; D44; M31.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/60983

Stranlund, John K.; Murphy, James J.; Spraggon, John M..

Two important design elements for emission trading programs are whether and to what extent firms are able to bank emissions permits, and how these programs are to be enforced. In this paper we present results from laboratory emissions markets designed to investigate enforcement and compliance when these markets allow permit banking. Banking is motivated by a decrease in the aggregate permit supply in the middle of multi-period trading sessions. Consistent with theoretical insights, our experiments suggest that high permit violation penalties have little deterrence value in dynamic emissions markets, and that the main challenge of enforcing these programs is to motivate truthful self-reports of emissions.

Myopic or Farsighted? An Experiment on Network Formation

Palavras-chave: Compliance; Enforcement; Emissions trading; Laboratory experiments; Permit markets; Permit banking; Environmental Economics and Policy; Public Economics; C91; L51; Q58.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/93966

Mantovani, Marco; Kirchsteiger, Georg; Mauleon, Ana; Vannetelbosch, Vincent.

Pairwise stability (Jackson and Wolinsky, 1996) is the standard stability concept in network formation. It assumes myopic behavior of the agents in the sense that they do not forecast how others might react to their actions. Assuming that agents are farsighted, related stability concepts have been proposed. We design a simple network formation experiment to test these theories. Our results provide support for farsighted stability and strongly reject the idea of myopic behavior.

FOOD DECISION, INFORMATION AND PERSONALITY

Palavras-chave: Network Formation; Experiment; Myopic and Farsighted Stability; Environmental Economics and Policy; D85; C91; C92.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/108256

Loheac, Youenn; Combris, Pierre; Issancou, Sylvie.

This study introduce measures of personality traits in an experiment which associate willingness to pay for food and sensory analysis tools in order to explore potential links between personality and food decisions. Measure of personality traits comes from experimental economics (risk aversion and time preference) and from psychology (sensation seeking and impulsivity). We introduce them in the analysis of behaviours of participants in their food decisions (purchase intent, willingness to pay, reaction to new information), and underline some significant links.

The Role of Bounded Rationality in Farm Financing Decisions – First Empirical Evidence –

Palavras-chave: Food decision; Information; Experimental methods; Risk aversion; Time preference; Personality traits; Agricultural and Food Policy; Consumer/Household Economics; Demand and Price Analysis; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Food Security and Poverty; Health Economics and Policy; C91; D12.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/116434

Musshoff, Oliver; Hirschauer, Norbert; Wassmuss, Harm.

Farmers do not often change from their house bank to another bank, even if the competing banks offer better conditions. This “reluctance to switch” can be explained, on the one hand, by the transaction costs resulting from such a change of business relation. On the other hand, it may be the result of bounded rationality. The results of a survey of North German farmers show that they are indeed bounded rational borrowers. They greatly underestimate the monetary disadvantages which are caused by the higher interest rates for loans from their house bank. In other words: They do not switch bank even if their individually perceived transaction costs are already “covered” by the lower interest rates of the alternative loan offer.

(Anti-) Coordination in Networks

Palavras-chave: Financing behavior; Bounded rationality; Switching costs; Agricultural Finance; Farm Management; Financial Economics; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Q12; G32; C91.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/51545

Kovarik, Jaromir; Mengel, Friederike; Romero, Jose Gabriel.

We study (anti-) coordination problems in networks in a laboratory experiment. Partici- pants interact with their neighbours in a fixed network to play a bilateral (anti-) coordination game. Our main treatment variable is the extent to which players are heterogeneous in the number of connections (neighbors) they have. Other network characteristics are held constant across treatments. We find the following results. Heterogeneity in the number of connections dramatically improves the rate of successful coordination. In addition, even though there is a multiplicity of Nash equilibria theoretically, a very sharp selection is observed empirically: the most connected player can impose her preferred Nash equilibrium almost always and observed Nash equilibria are...

WHEN DOES THE PRICE AFFECT THE TASTE? RESULTS FROM A WINE EXPERIMENT

Palavras-chave: Game Theory; Networks; Coordination Problems; Experiments; Risk and Uncertainty; C72; C90; C91; D85.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/61370

Almenberg, Johan; Dreber, Anna.

We designed an experiment that examines how knowledge about the price of a good, and the time at which the information is received, affects how the good is experienced. The good in question was wine, and the price was either high or low. Our results suggest that hosts offering wine to guests can safely reveal the price: much is gained if the wine is expensive, and little is lost if it is cheap. Disclosing the high price before tasting the wine produces considerably higher ratings, although only from women. Disclosing the low price, by contrast, does not result in lower ratings. Our finding indicates that price not only serves to clear markets, it also serves as a marketing tool; it influences expectations that in turn shape a consumer’s experience. In...

OBESITY AND HYPERBOLIC DISCOUNTING: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

Palavras-chave: Price-Quality Heuristic; Attribute Information; Role of Expectations; Marketing; Blind Tasting; Wine; Consumer/Household Economics; Demand and Price Analysis; C91; D03; D83; M31.

Ano: 2009

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/51755

Richards, Timothy J.; Hamilton, Stephen F.; Pofahl, Geoffrey M..

Behavioral economists maintain that addictions such as alcoholism, smoking and over-eating represent examples of present-bias in decision making that is fundamentally irrational. In this article, we develop a model of present bias and apparently hyperbolic discounting that is fully consistent with rational behavior. We construct an experiment to test our hypothesis and to determine whether discount rates differ for individuals who engage in behaviors that could endanger their health. Our results show that discount functions are quasi-hyperbolic in shape, and that obesity and drinking are positively related to the discount rate. Anti-obesity policy, therefore, would be best directed to informing individuals as to the long-term implications of short-term...