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 Choices in Food and Money (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. Utility weight 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. Dynamic inconsistencies in food and money choices are independent.
Predicting Food Waste from Dynamic Inconsistency (with Alexander Danzer), under review, 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.
Anchoring Effects in the Elicitation of Multidimensional Beliefs: Evidence from a Representative Survey Experiment (with Philipp Lergetporer, Thomas Rittmannsberger and Katharina Werner), under review, access here
We study anchoring effects in the elicitation of multidimensional beliefs within a single survey task using a representative sample 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 partially also shift respondents’ policy preferences. %However, only anchors that challenge control-group beliefs yield significant effects. While the anchors change absolute estimates, perceived government-spending rankings remain stable. These findings offer methodological guidance for survey design involving multidimensional belief elicitation in information-provision experiments.
On the Economic Determinants of Gender Norms (with Hanna Brosch, Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer and Katharina Werner), draft to be published soon
Beliefs on Policy Preferences: Predictions of Experts and Non-Experts (with Klaus Gründler, Philipp Lergetporer, Niklas Potrafke and Katharina Werner), draft to be published soon
Economic Behavior under Containment: How do People Respond to Covid-19 Restrictions? (with Alexander Danzer and Matthias Holzmann), draft in preparation
Perceived War Risks and Policy Preferences: Evidence from a Survey Experiment (with Sebastian Blesse, Philipp Lergetporer and Clara Pache), data analysis
Beliefs and Preferences over Information Provision in Economic Policy (with Sebastian Blesse, Philipp Lergetporer and Clara Pache), data analysis
Social Norms toward Politicians (with Sebastian Blesse, Philipp Lergetporer and Clara Pache), data analysis
Policy Making in the Tension Between Scientific Evidence and Public Opinion (with Sebastian Blesse, Philipp Lergetporer and Clara Pache), design phase