Comprehension in risk elicitation experiments |
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Authors: | Jens Rommel Daniel Hermann Malte Müller Oliver Mußhoff |
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Affiliation: | 1. Leibniz Centre of Agricultural Landscape Research, Müncheberg, Germanyjens.rommel@zalf.de;3. Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Georg-August-Universit?t G?ttingen, Germany;4. Department of Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, Germany |
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Abstract: | Economic experiments are increasingly conducted with field populations for whom comprehension of instructions may be more difficult to achieve. We investigate how framing experimental instructions in a familiar context and incentivizing the experimental task may affect comprehension. Based on an experiment with 146 German farmers, we compare four different versions of a Holt-and-Laury multiple price list. We find that incentives have a small positive effect on comprehension, as measured by the probability of making inconsistent choices and subjects’ self-assessment. In the absence of incentives, framing negatively affects comprehension. Comprehension is enhanced for farmers who score high on a numeracy test. We conclude that contextual framing might confuse subjects, whereas incentives can help to facilitate comprehension of experimental instructions. |
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Keywords: | Comprehension in experiments framing effects Holt and Laury incentive effects |
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