Project Details
Projekt
A behavioural economic analysis of compliance and non-compliance with water-protection and food-safety rules in primary production: a survey- and experiment-based study
Subject Area
Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Policy, Agricultural Sociology
Term
from 2015 to 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 273502918
Over the last decades, citizens and policy makers have become increasingly concerned about the challenges related to the agri-food system such as food quality and safety, the free and informed choice of consumers, animal welfare, and environmental protection. Troubled by the negative externalities of food production as well as a great number of food law offences and frauds, citizens and policy makers call for more efforts to identify the failures in food markets and mitigate the corresponding food risks and environmental problems. Applied behavioural studies of what makes primary producers break (or not break) rules in their specific economic and social contexts are as yet scarce. Hence, knowledge gaps persist regarding the design of effective and cost efficient regulatory strategies. Against this background, the proposed research project is aimed at improving the understanding of compliant and non-compliant behaviour in primary production. In this endeavour, we use different conceptions of man both from the realm of economics (narrow and broad rational choice) and psychology (trait theory and theory of planned behaviour) to specify binary outcome models. Necessary data are systematically generated through surveys and experimental approaches (business management games) for two protected interests and contexts: (i) water protection legislation and minimum distance-to-water rules when applying nitrogen fertilizer, and (ii) food safety legislation and minimum waiting periods after pesticide use in fruit/vegetable production. We triangulate the various approaches and assess whether the incidence of compliant and non-compliant behaviour is significantly different in the two decision contexts. We furthermore compare the complying and the non-complying group over both contexts. Going beyond the explanation of behaviour (positive analysis), the project is also aimed to contribute to better regulatory strategies (normative analysis) and thus the prevention of rule-breaking behaviour. The proposed research project is the first one to systematically link economic and psychological conceptions in the attempt to explain behaviour in the two subject areas production of grand cultures/water protection and fruit and vegetable production/food safety. It is also the first one to resort to a systematic generation of primary data in these fields via surveys and experiments that are carried out in the form of business management games with representatives of the group of interest as experimental subjects. We expect that the project will not only improve the understanding of the behaviour of the specific group of study but contribute to the methodological improvement of regulatory impact analysis with its general interest on conditional forecasting. The project will furthermore identify new research needs, especially with regard to the suitability of various conceptual approaches and experimental designs for regulatory impact analysis.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
