The E-Word – On the Public Acceptance of Experiments (with Mira Fischer, Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer and Katharina Werner), Economics Letters, access here.
Predicting Food Waste from Dynamic Inconsistency (with Alexander Danzer), Revise&Resubmit at Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, access latest version here
Household food waste imposes substantial economic and environmental costs, yet its behavioral determinants remain imperfectly understood. Because food consumption unfolds over multiple stages, it creates scope for dynamically inconsistent choices that may turn good intentions into waste. We investigate this relationship using a nationally representative survey from Germany that combines targeted measures of food purchasing, consumption, and waste with individual present-bias parameters elicited from monetary intertemporal trade-off questions. More present-biased individuals waste significantly more food: a 10% increase in dynamic inconsistency is associated with roughly 2% more waste. This relationship is robust across specifications, replicated using a self-reported procrastination proxy, and stable several weeks later in a second survey wave. We also identify and empirically validate the mechanism linking present bias to food waste: dynamically inconsistent individuals are more likely to deviate from their own consumption intentions, and these deviations are strongly predictive of food waste. Our findings identify present bias as a systematic and previously overlooked driver of avoidable household food waste, suggesting that food policies need to address behavior along the full consumption chain.
Expertise and Prediction Accuracy (with Elisabeth Grewenig, Klaus Gründler, Philipp Lergetporer, Niklas Potrafke and Katharina Werner), under review, access here
Public support for policy interventions depends on citizens’ beliefs about their likely effects. We examine how individuals form such beliefs by studying their predictions of experimental outcomes in a policy-relevant setting, and why their predictions differ from expert benchmarks. We elicit forecasts from 127 professional economists and a representative sample of 6,200 German households about a large-scale behavioral experiment on education policy (N = 3,133). Non-experts predict both average outcomes and treatment effects far less accurately than experts. Prediction accuracy improves with calibrated priors, self-reported effort, and the use of structured reasoning, but remains well below expert levels. We show that scalable design features, including the provision of well-calibrated numerical anchors and monetary incentives to rise effort, improve non-expert predictions, with effects comparable in magnitude to tertiary education or structured reasoning. Our findings have important implications for bridging the `expertise gap' in public discourse.
Present Bias over Food Choices: Field Experimental Evidence (with Alexander Danzer), revising, access here
This paper investigates time inconsistencies in food consumption based on a field experiment at a college canteen where participants repeatedly select and consume lunch menus. The design features a convex non-monetary budget in a natural environment and satisfies the consume-on-receipt assumption. Leveraging 3,666 choices of different food healthiness, we find no time inconsistency at the meal level. Estimates at the dish level reveal that consumers balance healthiness between food categories. Individuals who exert self-control take up a commitment device as soon as available, while non-committers are present-biased.
Information Spillovers in the Elicitation of Multidimensional Beliefs (with Philipp Lergetporer, Thomas Rittmannsberger and Katharina Werner), under review, access here
We study information-spillover effects in the elicitation of multidimensional beliefs using a representative survey of the German voting-age population. Respondents estimated government-spending levels across several domains (e.g., education, defense, social security), with randomized exposure to different informational anchors in one domain. Anchors significantly influence elicited beliefs in related domains and can also shift respondents’ policy preferences. While the anchors change absolute estimates, perceived government-spending rankings remain stable.
Are Gender Norms Shaped by Who Earns More? (with Hanna Brosch, Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer and Katharina Werner), draft
Gender norms about parental labor supply are central to persistent gender inequality, yet their causal determinants remain poorly understood. We examine whether people's gender attitudes are driven by mothers' and fathers' earnings, which may shape views about the efficient allocation of paid work and care. In a large-scale representative vignette experiment in Germany (N > 10,000), we randomly vary pre-childbirth earnings and measure support for the norm that mothers should stay home while fathers work full-time. Without specifying earnings, support is very high (90%) and remains so when the mother earns less (93%). When she earns more, support drops sharply to 47%, yet nearly half of respondents still recommend that the mother stay home. This asymmetric response rejects a purely income-based explanation of gender norms. Thus, economic circumstances shape gender attitudes, but deeply rooted norms persist even when they conflict with financial incentives.
Political and Economic Behavior under Containment: How do People Respond to Covid-19 Restrictions? (with Alexander Danzer and Matthias Holzmann), draft
This paper investigates the polito-economic effect of pre-determined election cycles on public policy decision-making during times of crisis, exemplified with Covid-19 containment policies across German states. In the early stage of the pandemic, upcoming elections increased policy stringency, whereas at a later stage this effect reversed. To establish a causal link, we instrument policy stringency with the distance to the next election. Moreover, we study the effect of those policies on behavioral changes in people's everyday lives. Leveraging two nationally representative panels, the paper exploits within state policy variation to assess behavioral changes in different economic domains. Government restrictions increase working from home and the provision of childcare at home, while it reduces the number of grocery shopping trips. While the political economy of containment policies changed during the pandemic, the efficacy of countermeasures remained constant.
When the Headline Hits Home: Perceived Risk of Military Conflict and Preferences for Defense (with Sebastian Blesse, Philipp Lergetporer and Clara Pache), draft in preparation
Beliefs about the Effectiveness of Information and Preferences for Its Dissemination: Evidence from Redistribution Preferences (with Sebastian Blesse, Philipp Lergetporer and Clara Pache), draft in preparation
Policy Making in the Tension Between Scientific Evidence and Public Opinion (with Sebastian Blesse, Philipp Lergetporer and Clara Pache), design phase