The effects of monetary compensation on paid volunteers: Evidence from Germany
(joint with Annalisa Tassi)
Voorintholt, L. (2023). Substitutes or complements: a budget-based analysis of the relationship between donating and volunteering. Oxford Economic Papers, 75(4), 1033–1052. https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpad022.
Voorintholt, L. (2020). Discounting beyond death: an exploration of intergenerational distribution
preferences. Reinvention: an International Journal of Undergraduate Research, 13(1).
Voorintholt, L., van den Berg, G.J., Soetevent, A.R. (2025). For the future of our grandchildren: grandparenthood and climate change concerns. IZA Discussion Paper No. 17795.
https://docs.iza.org/dp17795.pdf. Revise and resubmit, European Economic Review.
Abstract:
Concerns about offspring's life quality are often cited as a motivation for caring about climate change. This paper investigates the hypothesized causal effect of grandparenthood on climate change worries, using panel data surveys among British families. Specifically, we study whether becoming a grandparent increases these worries. We employ two different study designs to deal with endogeneity of grandparenthood. The assumptions required to identify causal effects differ and are non-nested. However, results based on the two approaches are remarkably congruent. We find no empirical support for a relationship between grandparental status and concerns about climate change.
Voorintholt, L., Soetevent, A.R., van den Berg, G.J. (2025). Measuring worries about climate change: The effect of a subtle wording change.
Revise and resubmit, Journal of Economic Psychology.
Abstract:
Insight into public attitudes toward climate change requires accurate and consistent survey tools. The Understanding Society study asks respondents to what extent they agree that “The effects of climate change are too far in the future to worry me.” The phrasing “worry me” may prompt respondents to put relatively much weight on personal costs of climate change as opposed to societal costs, which we illustrate with a simple framework. We design and implement a survey experiment in which respondents are randomly assigned either to the original “worry me” question or to a version that replaces “worry me” with “worry about”. We find that reported climate change worries are on average significantly higher among the latter. This effect is mainly driven by the oldest age group, which can be explained by their expected shorter exposure to future climate change impacts. Results suggest that environmental attitude measures are sensitive to formulation details. We discuss the implications for the interpretation of previously collected data and for future research design.
Beyond compound interest: Environmental framing and the understanding of exponential growth (joint with Adriaan Soetevent and Gerard van den Berg)
A summary with the initial findings from the above project is included in the following:
Vine, J., Aguirre, E., Al Baghal, T., Benzeval, M., Burton, J., Butler, C., Chung, H., Couper, M., Coutrot, A., Delaney, L., Fowler, C., Jäckle, A., Kumari, M., Lieutaud, M., Mansfield, K. L., Mitchell, L., Parutis, V., Payne, J., Popli, G., Przybylski, A. K., Raj, S., Ratcliffe, A., Soetevent, A. R., Spiers, H., van den Berg, G. J., Voorintholt, L., & Wang, S. (2024). Understanding Society Innovation Panel wave 16: Results from methodological experiments and new data (Understanding Society Working Paper Series No. 2024–11). Understanding Society. https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/working-papers/2024-11.pdf