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Peter Andre receives Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award

December 7, 2022

Peter Andre, briq postdoctoral fellow since January, has been selected as the winner of this year’s Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award in the area of behavioral economics. The prize is funded by the international CESifo research network based in Munich and aims at identifying promising young researchers. Last year’s winner in the field behavioral economics was briq postdoc Suanna Oh (see briq newsroom article). Previous winners include briq research director Florian Zimmermann and briq research affiliate Matt Lowe.

Peter’s paper “Shallow Meritocracy” investigates whether people consider other people’s circumstances when judging their merits and accomplishments. Meritocracies aspire to reward hard work but promise not to judge individuals by the circumstances into which they were born. However, the choice to work hard is often shaped by individual chances and incentives resulting from one’s personal situation.

The award-winning study shows that people, in fact, often neglect personal circumstances and their effect on life choices when evaluating another person’s merits. In an experiment, US participants judge how much money workers deserve for the effort they exert. Unequal circumstances discourage some workers from working hard. Nonetheless, participants reward the effort of disadvantaged and advantaged workers identically, regardless of the circumstances under which choices are made.

Additional experiments identify an important underlying mechanism. Individuals understand that choices are influenced by circumstances. But, as people do not know what exactly would have happened on a level playing field, individuals base their merit judgments on the only reliable evidence they possess: observed effort levels.

See also the video interview: Three questions with Peter Andre

Filed Under: News

briq Climate Workshop

November 24, 2022

Can behavioral insights contribute to better climate policy? How do behavioral motives and biases interact with market institutions? And what are the consequences of market-based solutions in unequal societies? To discuss and explore these questions, the briq Climate Workshop brought together researchers from psychology, behavioral economics, environmental economics, theoretical microeconomics, climate finance, and macroeconomics.

Below is a brief summary of the topics covered (see the workshop program for a full list of presentations).

Experience of extreme weather events: Eric Johnson presented a meta study showing that current or recent weather experiences can influence concerns about global warming. Elke Weber‘s work showed that witnessing extreme weather events can even reduce the political partisan gap in climate attitudes. David Huffman explored the effects of weather on economic and social preferences, and Johannes Stroebel explained how the local reaction of investors to local weather events can be used to derive a climate risk hedge portfolio.

Preferences: Frikk Nesje argued that the weight a social planner places on future welfare increases if people’s preference to benefit future generations is generalized above their descendants, an idea he refers to as “cross-dynastic intergenerational altruism”. Klaus Schmidt explained under which circumstances carbon emission trading interferes with the private motivation of households, firms, or states.

Attention: Anna Schulze Tilling explored how food labels facilitate climate-conscious food choices, in particular through an attention mechanism. Matthias Rodemeier discussed how attention to information about energy efficiency can mute price sensitivity and thus interfere with the incentive effect of subsidies. 

Other topics included the behavioral principles of cooperation (Simon Gächter), peer effects (Sebastian Tebbe), the unequal effects of carbon taxation (Diego Känzig), the consequences of wealth inequality for the optimal taxation of externalities (Philipp Strack), and people’s misperception of their marginal impact on global warming (Christoph Semken). briq researcher Peter Andre presented global evidence on people’s willingness to act against climate change—brand new results from a novel briq research project.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: climate

What Germans think and do about climate change

September 1, 2022

The latest four editions of the briq policy monitor use a large representative sample of adults in Germany to document their attitudes towards climate change and the individual willingness to engage in climate protection, measured through an incentivized donation decision and questions related to climate-friendly behaviors.

The results are currently available in German language only – an English version will follow shortly.

Filed Under: News

Ulrike Malmendier joins German Council of Economic Experts

August 15, 2022

briq Visiting Professor Ulrike Malmendier has been appointed to the German Council of Economic Experts in August 2022. This body of independent experts, consisting of five members appointed for five years, is mandated by the federal government to present a periodic assessment of Germany’s macroeconomic development. Their expertise is meant to help both economic policymakers and the general public make informed decisions.

Ulrike Malmendier is among the top five percent of the world’s most cited economists. After completing a doctorate in Law at the University of Bonn, she received her doctorate in Business Economics from Harvard University in 2002. Her main research interests are in behavioral economics and behavioral finance, also including corporate finance, household finance, economics of organizations, and contract theory. She is currently a Professor of Finance and Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Chair of the briq Scientific Council.

Read more (in German):

  • SZ: „Die Weisen werden weiblich“
  • FAZ: Interview mit Ulrike Malmendier
  • Wiwo: Sind Ältere die besseren Zentralbanker?

Filed Under: News

Paper by briq researchers wins IRECC Award

February 25, 2022

The working paper “Fighting Climate Change: The Role of Norms, Preferences, and Moral Values” by briq and University of Bonn researchers Peter Andre, Teodora Boneva, Felix Chopra and Armin Falk has received the IRECC Award for “Innovative Research in the Economics of Climate Change” given by the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) for the two best IZA Discussion Papers published in 2021 on the nature and implications of climate change.

The award-winning research addresses the role of social norms, individual preferences, and moral views in fighting climate change. The key finding of this experimental study: Many people contribute little to climate protection because they underestimate the willingness of others to fight global warming. Providing information on prevalent climate norms raises support for climate-friendly policies, particularly among climate-change skeptics [read more].

The second paper selected for the award, “Temperature, Workplace Safety, and Labor Market Inequality” by Jisung Park, Nora Pankratz and Patrick Behrer, illustrates that rising temperatures increase the risk of work injuries at both outdoor and indoor workplaces. Since low-wage earners are disproportionately affected, this may also exacerbate income inequality. This is a prime example of unexpected secondary effects of climate change that deserve further investigation [read more].

Worth 10,000 euros, the newly established IRECC Award recognizes important new insights into the broader, often underestimated consequences of climate change and the effects of environmental policies on society and the labor market. The inaugural IRECC winners “represent the best of modern applied-economics research,” according to the award committee made up of Susana Ferreira (University of Georgia), Andrew Oswald (University of Warwick, IZA) and Hilmar Schneider (IZA).

Filed Under: News Tagged With: climate

Botond Kőszegi to join briq research team

December 13, 2021

Starting in the summer of 2022, Botond Kőszegi will become a full-time professor at briq. He is currently University Professor at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, after previous positions at the University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Holding a BA in mathematics from Harvard University in 1996, he received his PhD in economics from the MIT in 2000 as one of the first students to write a PhD thesis entirely on behavioral economics.

Having visited many times, I already know briq very well, and have experienced the intense and friendly environment that makes it a center of behavioral-economics research. I look forward to being part of it full time and helping to grow it further!

Over the past two decades he has published extensively on behavioral-economics topics – including several lead articles – in top journals such as the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of the European Economic Association, and Journal of Public Economics. He was also Managing Editor at the Review of Economic Studies.

Focusing primarily on the theoretical foundations of behavioral economics, Botond has produced research on self-control problems and the consumption and regulation of harmful products, self-image and anticipatory utility, reference-dependent preferences and loss aversion, markets for deceptive products, and misguided learning.

He has received European Research Council Grants in 2012 and 2018, and the Yrjö Jahnsson Award, a biennial award for the best economist in Europe under the age of 45, in 2015 (see video below).

“I am extremely happy, both academically and personally, that Botond will join us. This will clearly boost our behavioral economics research at briq and Bonn. Absolutely terrific!” said briq director Armin Falk.

Filed Under: News

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