Lara Bartels

Cities are increasingly being held accountable for their climate action. By demonstrating their pro-environmentality through their own climate-related activities, they aspire to encourage individual climate protection efforts. However, economic theory posits that this strategy may not be as promising as it appears. Since cities fund these initiatives using taxpayers’ money, their contributions may be perceived as substitutes, potentially crowding out private contributions to the same public good. Inspired by research on the crowding-in effects of social norms, leadership, and the expressive influence of laws, we challenge this argument. We conducted a framed field experiment to analyze whether providing information on the previous contributions made by the city itself has an impact on individual private contributions to the same public good. Results show no statistically significant evidence that city contributions reduce resident contributions. Instead, referencing fellow citizens increases contributors, attracting especially those less pro-environmentally oriented.

An earlier version is available here as ZEW Discussion Paper Nr.22-040 // 2022

Economic games have emerged as promising tools for fostering sustainable resource management, yet their gender dynamics remain underexplored. We examine how women’s participation relates to the effectiveness of game-based learning in 56 Indian communities facing water management challenges. These structured experiential learning environments allow participants to develop system understanding, problem-solving capacities, and collective action through active engagement. Our results suggest that greater female involvement is associated with improved water management outcomes 2 years after the intervention. Notably, the presence of female leaders correlated with broader participation among women, which in turn was linked to the development of more effective management rules. These findings indicate that gender-balanced participation may enhance the success of such interventions. Incorporating women in game-based learning has the potential to support long-term improvements in resource management, highlighting the importance of inclusive approaches.

Environmental subsidies are a popular public finance instrument used to reduce carbon emissions. However, there is little evidence on the mechanisms underlying the demand response to the introduction of a subsidy. We use a framed field experiment to disentangle the relative importance of the price and non-price effects implicit in a subsidy encouraging an energy-efficiency investment. In the experiment, participants decide whether or not to purchase  a low-flow showerhead and are either confronted with the introduction of a subsidy or a same-sized price decrease. We find a demand increase of about 3 percentage points when the price decreases and a significantly larger demand increase of about 9 percentage points when the subsidy is introduced. An analysis of the underlying channels rules out changes in beliefs and social norm perceptions. Positive spill-over effects of the subsidy on other pro-environmental behaviors rather suggest that the non-price effect is explained by a crowding in of intrinsic motivation.

This study explores the individual willingness to pay (WTP) for carbon removal through afforestation as a complementary climate change mitigation strategy. Using a framed-field experiment, we assess the impact of local co-benefits and geographic location on WTP. We find that participants strongly favor voluntary climate change mitigation through forestry-based removal. Emphasizing co-benefits doesn’t significantly alter WTP in our municipal tree-planting project. A follow-up survey indicates a high awareness of co-benefits, suggesting that unobserved priors may influence WTP results. Trust levels are higher for forestry-based removal than for established market-based carbon avoidance, suggesting preferences for understandable mitigation measures with tangible co-benefits.

As resource users interact and impose externalities onto each other, institutions are needed to coordinate resource use and provide incentives for sustainable management. However, when such collective action is absent, the question arises - how can it be fostered? This paper deepens our understanding of experiential learning's role in behavioural change, thereby offering a pathway towards sustainable commons management. We present a conceptual framework elaborating on the essential processes involved in experiential learning games. Applying the framework to three intervention cases from India - focusing on groundwater, surface water, and forests - we scrutinize the role of design features in shaping behavioural drivers associated with commons management. Our findings suggest that selecting appropriate tools systematically for specific purposes, including participants who can correlate the game with their real-life scenarios, is critical. We conclude by shedding light on areas requiring future research from both game design and conceptual behavioural change perspectives.

Laboratory experiments in social sciences are a powerful tool with which to study causal mechanisms in human interactions. Over the past several years, experimental games have been applied increasingly in transdisciplinary research in natural resource management with a strong purpose to develop capacity to promote learning and behavioral change. Yet, few studies have evaluated the potential of different experimental game designs to promote collective action outside of experiments. In a framed field experiment on water management in rural India, we compared within-game behavior and collective action outside the game between individuals who received individual payments and those who did not. Our results show little evidence for different behavior in the game. However, we find some evidence that our experimental game induced real-world changes compared to a control group without game intervention and that this change is slightly more likely to occur when individual payments are used.