The E-Word – On the Public Acceptance of Experiments (with Mira Fischer, Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer and Katharina Werner), Economics Letters, access here.
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.
Predicting Food Waste from Dynamic Inconsistency (with Alexander Danzer), R&R Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, access here
This paper investigates the relationship between dynamically inconsistent time preferences and individual food waste behavior along the food consumption chain. Using data from a nationally representative longitudinal survey in Germany, we construct targeted measures of food purchasing, consumption, and waste, alongside individual dynamic inconsistency parameters derived from monetary trade-off questions. We find that present-biased individuals waste more food. This result is replicated when employing a validated self-reported procrastination proxy, enabling methodological triangulation; moreover, present bias also predicts food waste behavior several weeks later in the second survey wave. We investigate a behavioral mechanism in which healthy food, purchased with good intentions, is consumed later than planned and consequently spoils, and we find empirical support for each step of this process. By linking inconsistencies between grocery shopping and food preparation, our study provides novel evidence that dynamically inconsistent decision-making contributes to the persistent generation of avoidable household food waste, with important implications for the design of targeted behavioral interventions.
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.
On the Economic Determinants of Gender Norms (with Hanna Brosch, Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer and Katharina Werner)
We conduct a large-scale, representative experiment (N > 10,000) in Germany to examine how within-family earnings differentials before childbirth influence individuals' gender attitudes toward maternal labor supply. Leveraging a vignette experiment, we induce exogenous variation in within-family earnings and elicit individual gender attitudes. When the mother earns less, 93% of respondents agree with the conservative gender norm that the mother should stay at home while the father works full-time. When there are no earnings differences between parents, support for the norm decreases but remains high at 89%. However, if the mother earns more, support for the conservative gender norm drops sharply to 47%, though it still remains considerable. A heterogeneity analysis reveals that more gender-progressive respondents react more strongly to earnings information, whereas less progressive respondents remain substantially more supportive of the conservative norm. We further provide evidence speaking against an efficiency explanation tied to mandatory maternity protection driving our results. Overall, our findings indicate that economic considerations shape gender attitudes, yet traditional norms persist even when they are financially costly.
Predicting Research Findings: What Drives Differences between Experts and Non-Experts? (with Klaus Gründler, Philipp Lergetporer, Niklas Potrafke and Katharina) Werner)
Public support for policy interventions depends on citizens’ beliefs about their likely effects. We examine how experts and non-experts form such beliefs by studying their predictions of experimental outcomes in a policy‑relevant setting, and why their predictions differ. 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. Among non-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.
Political and Economic Behavior under Containment: How do People Respond to Covid-19 Restrictions? (with Alexander Danzer and Matthias Holzmann)
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
Social Norms toward Politicians (with Sebastian Blesse, Philipp Lergetporer and Clara Pache), under review
Reducing Food Waste: Field Experimental Evidence (with Alexander Danzer, in cooperation with consumer agency NRW), under review