Erling Moxnes

The Effect of Leadership in a Public Bad Experiment

In the face of global or regional environmental problems, do countries that take unilateral actions inspire other countries to curtail emissions? The effect of leadership at the individual level is investigated by the use ofa novel design ofa laboratory public bad experiment with a leader. Twelve groups of5 participants played the game twice with two treatments: 10 rounds with a leader and 10 rounds without a leader. The order ofthe treatmentswas balanced over groups. A significant (within-subject) effect of leadership is found. Followers invest, on average, 13% less in the public bad when there is a leader setting the good example as opposed to a situation with no leader. This produces benefits also to the leaders but not enough to recover all the costs of taking a leading position.

Overexploitation of renewable resources: The role of misperceptions

Abstract Numerous renewable resources have been exploited beyond limits for sustainable and economic development. At times over-exploitation has been observed even in cases where management regimes have been in place. Thus, it seems pertinent to search for explanations beyond the theory of the commons. An experiment is performed where subjects set reindeer quotas in a district where lichen has been severely depleted by preceding overgrazing. All subjects err on the side of over-exploitation. Behavior seems to be dominated by inappropriate, static mental models and inefficient heuristics. Hence, a subtle information problem is revealed.

Optimal strategies for the use of reindeer rangelands

The problem of optimal adaptation of reindeer herds to rangelands under uncertain environmental conditions and measurement errors is studied by stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) and by stochastic optimisation in policy space (SOPS). The study expands on earlier studies by including measurement error, body weights, alternatives to lichen in winter pastures, wastage of lichen by cratering reindeer, and by including both summer and winter pastures in the same model. The analysis shows that it is important to get precise estimates of lichen growth, alternatives to lichen are only important if their digestibility is above a minimum level, variable costs only matter for the optimal herd size when summer grazing is limiting, modest discounting has little effect, the policy is not sensitive to the degree of natural variation, while the value of reindeer husbandry is significantly reduced by increasing climatic variation, the policy is sensitive to measurement error, and there is a considerable value of higher precision in measurements.

Do numerical simulation and optimization results improve management?: Experimental evidence

A laboratory experiment is used to investigate the practical usefulness of two types of models or decision tools employed in social planning. The case is quota setting in a two-species fishery. We find that advice from both a simplistic two-species stochastic optimization model and from two single-species simulation models improve management. The tools are complements rather than substitutes. The optimization model helps subjects to set targets more efficiently, and the simulation model helps subjects to avoid destabilizing overreactions. However, the tools are only approximations, and subjects do not adjust fully for weaknesses of the tools.

Why advice on task selection may hamper learning in on-demand education

In on-demand education, learners are required to plan their own learning trajectory by selecting suitable learning tasks. A positive effect on learning is expected when learners select tasks that help them fulfil their individual learning needs. However, the selection of suitable tasks is a difficult process for learners with little domain knowledge and suboptimal task-selection skills. A common solution for helping learners deal with on-demand education and develop domain-specific skills is to give them advice on task selection. In a randomized experiment, learners (N=30) worked on learning tasks in the domain of system dynamics and received either advice or no advice on the selection of new learning tasks. Surprisingly, the no-advice group outperformed the advice group on a post-test measuring domain-specific skills. It is concluded that giving advice on task selection prevents learners from thinking about how the process of task selection works. The advice seems to supplant rather than support their considerations why they should perform the advised task, which results in negative effects on learning. Implications for future research on giving advice in on-demand education are discussed.

Leading by Example to Protect the Environment Do the Costs of Leading Matter

Environmentalists often urge their home countries to take a leading role in reducing global environmental problems like climate change. A pertinent question is: will examples set by leading nations influence others to follow suit, and if so, do the costs of leading matter? For instance, will costly domestic reductions have a stronger effect on followers than purchases of cheap emission permits abroad? To investigate these questions we have conducted two treatments in a public bad experiment in which leaders have different costs of leading. Our findings suggest that higher costs of leading lead to stronger effects of a given leader example. Randomly chosen leaders lead by example and set better examples if it is less costly to do so. Finally, there seems to be a limit to the leader effect and it may decrease over time.

Leading by Example to Protect the Environment

Environmentalists often urge their home countries to take a leading role in reducing global environmental problems like climate change. A pertinent question is, Will examples set by leading nations influence others to follow suit, and if so, do the costs of leading matter? For instance, will costly domestic reductions have a stronger effect on followers than purchases of cheap emission permits abroad? To investigate these questions, we have conducted two treatments in a public bad experiment in which leaders have different costs of leading. Our findings suggest that higher costs of leading lead to stronger effects of a given leader example. Randomly chosen leaders lead by example and set better examples if it is less costly to do so. Finally, there seems to be a limit to the leader effect and it may decrease over time.

Systems Education at Bergen

At the University of Bergen in Norway, educating students to use computer models and to think systemically about social and economic problems began in the 1970s. The International Masters Program in System Dynamics was established in 1995, and a Ph.D. program began a few years later. Student enrolment doubled in 2010 with the establishment of the European Master Program in System Dynamics. International diversity has been a hallmark of the Bergen program; each year, students come from about 30 different countries and more than 95% of the degrees have been awarded to students from outside of Norway. However, a Bergen systems education is not confined to a classroom in Norway. Projects in developing countries, emerging economies, and developed countries have taken the systems perspective and modeling tools on the road and, increasingly, online. Whatever the delivery mode, the goal is the same: capacity building among international students, planners and managers, and local stakeholders. This paper describes the Bergen program and its impact on systems thinking and modeling throughout the world.

“Stockfish”, a Multispecies Model for Stochastic Analysis

We explore the possibilities for constructing an aggregate model of the multispecies fish resources of the Barents Sea, useful for the purpose of policy analysis under uncertainty. A wish to make the model compatible with existing Norwegian models of the Barents Sea, notably the Aggmult and the Econmult models, works to complicate the model. A wish to use the model to search for policies under uncertainty, using computer intensive search procedures, calls for a limited number of calculations per simulation. Focus here is on the biological part of the model. The economic part of the model and the stochastics are presented in Moxnes (1994).

Exploration for petroleum and the inventory of proven reserves

Abstract This paper addresses the following question — does the number of proven petroleum reserves on the Norwegian continental shelf justify the current level of exploratory effort? The paper argues that this effort should be curtailed for some time to come. It also provides a framework within which the recurrent problem of selecting an appropriate level of exploratory effort can be analysed.