Testing for hypothetical bias in willingness to support a reforestation program

This study measures hypothetical bias in CVM-based estimates of willingness to support a forest protection and restoration program in Poland. It does so in two parallel ways: within- and between-subjects. To this end, participants are asked to vote in a referendum on an NGO-led reforestation project for various per-capita cost levels. They do so either directly or, as a surprise continuation, after a hypothetical analogue. Both methods deliver a similar (and substantial) level of hypothetical bias – it is slightly higher, but not significantly so, in the between-subject comparison. This suggests that hypothetical bias in this context is not primarily driven by such factors as consistency seeking or impression management.     

Imagineering city futures: The use of prospective through scenarios in urban planning

This article, based on empirical work by the authors over the past decade, argues that city planners and policy-makers lack an effective future-oriented approach enabling them to comprehend current complexity, anticipate impending change and shape a preferred future condition.Reflecting on more than a dozen recent city futures exercises, three overriding themes emerge: changing values systems will be the single biggest driver over the next thirty years; the forging of shared visions is a prerequisite to strategic city planning; and the nature, force and direction of the various vectors of collaborative leadership by constituent stakeholders will determine the future success or otherwise of city stewardship.The article concludes by calling for the formulation of a Unified Theory for Sustainable Cities by reference to Gaia and the application of a futures oriented approach such as Prospective Through Scenarios.     

State lottery in the lab: an experiment in external validity

Experimental Economics - In this study, we conduct a laboratory experiment in which the subjects make choices between real-world lottery tickets typically purchased by lottery customers. In this...     

File sharing as conditional cooperation: evidence from a framed field experiment

In this project, we investigate downloading and sharing behaviour in a novel ‘piracy game’ modelled after standard public good games. We find that willingness to share correlates positively with the sharing by others. By contrast, actual behaviour in the ‘piracy game’ is not correlated with self-reported behaviour.     

The Role of Repetition and Observability in Deterring Insurance Fraud

In this paper, I analyze an inspection game between an insurer and an infinite sequence of policyholders, who can try to misrepresent relevant information in order to obtain coverage or lower insurance premium. Because claim-auditing is costly for the insurer, ex-post moral hazard problem arises. I find that the repeated game effect serves as a commitment device, allowing the insurer to deter fraud completely (for sufficiently high discount rate) but only when the policyholders observe past auditing strategies. Under weaker observability conditions, only partial efficiency gains are generally possible. I conclude that the insurers should spend resources on signaling their anti-fraud attempts to the potential policyholders. Similar conclusions can be drawn with respect to conceptually similar problems, such as tax evasion.     

‘Give me a chance!’ An experiment in social decision under risk

This paper reports the results of a ‘probabilistic dictator game’ experiment in which subjects were given an option to share chances to win a prize with a dummy player. Using a within-subject design we manipulated two aspects of the decision, the relative cost of sharing and the nature of the lottery: the draws were either independent for the two players (‘noncompetitive’ condition) or one’s success meant other’s failure (‘competitive’ condition). We also asked for decisions in a standard, non-probabilistic, setting. The main results can be summarized as follows: first, a substantial fraction of subjects do share chances to win, also in the competitive treatments, thus showing concern for the other player that cannot be explained by outcome-based models. Second, subjects share less in the competitive treatment than in other treatments, indicating that procedural fairness alone cannot explain the data. Overall, these results suggest that models aiming at generalizing social concerns to risky environments will have to rely on a mix of distributive and procedural fairness.     

New generations of futures methods

This paper presents and further explores the issues discussed during the “New generations of futures methods” session at the WFSF 19th World Conference, Budapest, Hungary. The generational interplay has many different facets and can be looked at from many various perspectives. This paper looks at a broader role of young people as agents of cultural change in societies, their relation to futures studies and the implications of their fresh ways of thinking for futures methods. Also, the past evolution of futures methods and the challenges facing the present and future generation of futurists in regard to methodological as well as general development are reviewed. In an effort to draw together these issues and provide practical ways forward for futurists and their field four integrating themes are addressed:

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Allowing for differences, how do we develop solidarity between generations?

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What does the near-future outlook tell us that might help to achieve this?

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What personal, organisational and social capacities are needed?

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What methods are available for building social foresight?

     

Controlling a dam to environmentally acceptable standards through the use of a Decision Support Tool

We aim to establish a simple mathematical tool that could be used to set an appropriate level for the environmental levy which would allow a dam operator to remain profitable, yet also to ensure that the operator's policy is environmentally acceptable. We shall use Bellman's principle of optimality to solve an optimal control problem which will simulate the Station Operator's behaviour. The problem of the Regulatory Authority is multi-criteria and will be solved through aDecision Support Tool. The degree of fulfilment of the criteria will be a function of the target lake level, target extraction rate, and the level of the environmental levy. We will investigate the extent to which the targets are satisfied when the levy is altered.Research supported by VUW Graduate School of Business and Management.     

A glimpse through the veil of ignorance: Equality of opportunity and support for redistribution

This study is an experimental investigation into preference for redistribution of income. It had been hypothesized that (belief in) equality of opportunity in a society diminishes support for the welfare state. This could potentially explain the low taxes and social benefits in the United States vis-a-vis Europe. To verify this hypothesis, participants in an experiment were assigned different “Probabilities of Winning” and matched in groups of four. Next, before finding out who would actually win, they selected preferred transfers to be paid by the winners to the group as a whole. It was found that the average transfers were about 20% lower in the sessions in which winning was determined by performance in a task rather than by sheer luck. This difference cannot be explained by overconfidence in predicting own score. It corroborates the conjecture that perceived determinants of success (i.e. whether poverty results from laziness or bad luck) affect the support for redistribution. On the other hand, greater inequality of opportunity measured simply by dispersion of Probabilities of Winning within a group did not lead to higher transfers.     

Sharing or gambling? On risk attitudes in social contexts

Experimental Economics - Decisions under risk are often embedded in a social context that we usually abstract from when studying decision-making in the laboratory. In contrast to that practice, our...