Natalia V. Czap

Farmers' Decisions Regarding Carbon Sequestration: A Metaeconomic View

This article proposes a novel theoretical vision on the motivations behind the usage of conservation tillage technology. The metaeconomic model focuses on the two basic driving factors of individual behavior: the drive for closeness/unity with the environment that is shared with others, and a desire to control the environment while pursuing self-interest. This model integrates a more conventional approach to studying conservation with advances in sociology and psychology and suggests the presence of dual, often conflicting yet joint motives. Both the shared other-interest and the preference for control over outcomes temper the self-interest, as posited in metaeconomic theory. Metaeconomics gives both new theoretical ground and an empirical justification for designing policies that integrate and balance ethical suasion with financial incentives. It also gives a scientific basis for encouraging policy processes and programs directed at helping evolve a new shared other-interest in conservation outcomes within communities.

Walk the Talk? The Effect of Voting and Excludability in Public Goods Experiments

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of voting and excludability on individual contributions to group projects. We conducted two experiments on excludable and nonexcludable public goods, which provided several important results. First, contrary to our expectations, subjects are generally contributing more to the non-excludable compared to the excludable public good. Second, participating in a vote to choose a public project per se makes no difference in contributions. However, if the project that the individual voted for also gets selected by the group, they contribute significantly more to that project. Third, empathy and locus of control are important driving forces of participation in common projects. Our results have implications on the procedural design of obtaining funding for public projects. First, the public should get involved and have a say in the determination of which project should be realized. Second, it might well pay off to attempt to develop a consensus among the population and obtain near unanimous votes, because in our experiment, subjects discriminate between the project they voted for and the project chosen by the majority. Third, the policy proposers should stress the other-regarding interest of the public good rather than just pecuniary incentives.

A Theoretical Foundation for Empathy Conservation: Toward Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons

A Theoretical Foundation for Empathy Conservation: Toward Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons

Selection of Minimal Variable Subsets with the help of Genetic Algorithms in Economic Analysis

In this paper we demonstrate the use of Genetic Algorithms in the selection of significant variables from a large set of available variables used to explain the observed behavior of subjects in an economic experiment. Standard regression analysis requires assumptions on a functional form and may thus prevent us from finding all relevant relationships. When using a more flexible functional form the number of coefficients (corresponding to different variables and their interactions) grows exponentially. Hence, our goal in this paper is to select the smallest set of variables with the largest “explanatory” value. We use a variation of a non-traditional type of Genetic Algorithm, CHC, to “evolve” this preferred minimal set of relevant variables. We compare this approach with estimation based on basic linear (least squares) regression models and regression models chosen by using the stepwise regression method. Additionally, we also evaluate the effectiveness of various fitness criteria in our genetic algorithm’s fitness function. We believe that an evolutionary computation approach provides a useful alternative and supplementary method to more traditional methods by offering potentially new useful subsets of significant variables warranting further exploration and a limit to the number of coefficients in outputs.

Comparing Female and Male Response to Financial Incentives and Empathy Nudging in an Environmental Context

In the environmental context the combination of financial and non-financial incentives (specifically, empathy nudging) has been shown to be more effective than either of them individually (Czap et al., 2016). We investigate whether there are gender differences in the effectiveness of financial and non-financial incentives by using data from a framed laboratory experiment on environmental conservation behavior. Specifically, we compare the change in conservation efforts of females and males in response to financial incentives and empathy nudging applied separately and simultaneously. Our findings show that financial incentives affects males more than females, while empathy nudging affects only females. The combination of incentive and nudge lead to a synergetic effect for females, but not for males. This implies that policy makers can increase the effectiveness of environmental policy by accounting for these gender differences, especially as the number of farms headed by females in the US increases.