Ec paper fix

Keywords: Behavioural economics, material payoffs, environmental policy

DRH:

You highlighted what BE is all about relative to traditional econ. But there is no mention of how it will help/change environmental econ

Introduction

Using experiments has increased in different economics areas, such as environmental economics. Experiments offer reasonably low cost and powerful methods of examining conventional issues affecting environmental policy. In the last thirty years, laboratory experiments were supported by the available high-quality information needed for assessing policy initiatives in the environmental area. Various critical information from this work area was obtained, in different areas, including complying with environmental regulations and the need for specific trading features in the environmental markets. At the same time, different survey information has summarized the importance of laboratory experiments to address issues in the environment. Brent, Friesen, Gangadharan & Leibbrandt (2017) argue that field experiments have become complementary to the laboratory method used in the field of environmental economics. Alongside the laboratory experiments, there are also field experiments that have been carried out in the everyday environment of the participants without their awareness. These include artefactual, framed, and natural experiments, such as the randomized control trials. The field experiments are used because of two vital features. The field experiments help people to reach conclusions that are responsible for the particular environment where the environmental decisions are made and also give room for casual references.

DRH; It is not clear to me why your introduction is about experiments but does not relate it to your title/topic on BE. There is no statement of your research questions

DRH. Headings/sections should conform to guidelines- see old syllabus that has parts of a research paper. Below, I show how you can demonstrate the relationship of each section to each other and it will help with your ppt slides as well:

I. Introduction - background, research questions, motivation and rationale for the study (what the outline/proposal is all about)

II. Literature review- past studies, gaps in each and your contributions (what the annotated literature review is all about)

III. Method- if qualitative: include framework for comparison, criteria for assessment; if quantitative: data and sources, variable description, hypotheses , OLS, survey, etc. (using and applying information you learned from annotated bibliography stage)

IV. Results – answer each question in I using results from III and relating your results to results from past literature cited in II

V. Conclusions, Policy Implications, Directions for Future Research

The sections in this draft do not have the sections above and it is not clear what is being achieved by each section – what question each it answering. You are not supposed to arite a textbook with different sections for different topics. You are expected to be communicating answers to research questions, which up to this point have not been articulated. None of the statements made here are wrong. They just do not contribute to a whole.

This is the assessment form: right now you score very low on all items (1) a D:

Items 1-2 There is no central argument. Even after reading your proposal and annotated bibliography, there is nothing here that seems to build from those two submissions.

Items 3-4 Since there are no arguments or assertions made, therefore I cannot assess avidnce used to answer those arguments. The sections seem independent of each other and I do not see the purpose they serve.

Items 5-6 Therefore , there is no integration or synthesis to speak of. The conclusion does not tie up the independent sections.

Experimental Methods

The experimental method has been vital in the protection of the environment. During the 1970s, scientists, including Molina, Rowland, and Crutzen, showed that chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases that are used in plastic foams spray bottles, and refrigerators affect the ozone layer. While their ideas were founded on theoretically understanding the modeling methods and chemical processes, the experiments identified and measured the causal effects of CFC on the depletion of the ozone layer (Carlsson & Johansson-Stenman, 2012). Causal understanding obtained from experiments is not limited to the chemical processes alone. There is also increased dependence on experiments that involve human beings towards developing new medicine and better decision-making theories. In recent years, environmental economists have used the experimental method for generating knowledge about different behaviours that affect the environment, including standard pool extraction, pollution, and the conservation of energy. Scholars have used the natural settings of decision-makers, inviting them to participate in their experiments. The innovative technology has given them the room for examining behavioural patterns in natural resources and environmental users in the field.

A lot of the environmental goods and services, including rainforests, resource management, and fisheries, have elements linked with public goods and a shared pool of resources. While the pure public goods are defined by the non-rivalry and non-excludability in consumption. Various environmental public goods are regarded as impure public goods. These goods are not directly rivalrous, but the challenges of excluding people from utilizing these resources, and that consuming resource reduces its availability to other people, suggests that those who use resources encounter a social dilemma (Carlsson & Johansson-Stenman, 2012). Plans have been recommended for mitigating these issues, and some have emphasized on external interventions from the regulators while others advocate for community-led initiatives. According to Elinor Ostrom, if communities can design their usage schemes, enforce rules they form, and organist themselves, then self-governance and collective action are successful towards minimizing the effects of the social dilemmas.

Extrinsic or Intrinsic Motivations: Crowding Out or Crowding In?

Policymakers in the community and central levels have used various initiatives towards improving the use of community resources. Some of the use of resources emphasize on a regulatory or formal approach and use financial incentives such as penalties, audits, taxes, and subsidies for motivating people to use resources in socially optimal ways. Other approaches have focused on evoking intrinsic motivations for those who use the resources. Interactions between informal and formal schemes are necessary for examination, and the field setting is an ideal environment for exploring the substitutability and complementarily between the approaches. Chen (2016) carried out an experiment in Colombia among a group of fishermen who were using regulatory and informal methods to help them cooperate with the environment in meaningful ways. The experiments were framed as a situation where every fisherman decided on whether or not to clean piers and beaches. Ensuring the beaches are clean prevents lobster migration, and this makes it beneficial for everyone involved. Chen (2016) also examined the effects of non-regulatory and non-monetary incentives on the pro-social behaviours the related to conserving the environment by using experiments with groundwater and forest resources in Bolivia. The more socially connected people make significant contributions. Therefore, non-regulatory and non-monetary incentives produce various types of motivation crowding-out impacts.

Impacts of the Pigovian Regulation

In the traditional frameworks, the Pigovian regulation establishes corrective subsidy or tax to ensure agents understand the external impacts linked with production or consumption decisions. The market-based techniques, especially Pigovian regulation, make consumers understand the external impacts linked with their decisions. Regardless, when there are behavioral agents that frame changes in prices, it could backfire. Ek & Miliute-Plepiene (2018) state that the Pigovian tax is examined against businesses or private individuals for taking part in a task that causes negative impacts for the community. The adverse side impacts are costs that are not part of the market price of the product. These include aspects such as strains on public healthcare from selling tobacco products, environmental pollution, and related side impacts that cause negative, external influence. Economists claim that the costs from the negative externalities, including pollution to the environment, are caused by society and not the producers. The Pigovian tax seeks to discourage actions that impose costs of production to third parties and the community entirely. Pigou claimed that the negative externalities prevented a market economy from attaining equilibrium whenever the manufacturers fail to factor all the production costs (Ek & Miliute-Plepiene, 2018). The adverse impacts are correctable through levying taxes that are equal to the externalized costs. In an ideal situation, the taxes are equivalent to the external damage that is caused by the manufacturers, and this reduces the external costs. BE is shown through the Pigovian tax style, especially on pollution.

A factory causes pollution and thereby leads to negative externalities because the affected third parties bear part of production costs from the pollution. This cost is shown through health risks or contaminated property. The polluting factory only considers the private costs and not the external costs. Pigou always believed that the interventions of the state must correct the negative externalities, which is believed to be a market failure. Notwithstanding the criticism of the theories of Pigou, the Pigovian taxes are standard in modern-day society. An example of a Pigovian tax is the tax on carbon emissions. The governments have imposed a carbon emissions tax on any organization burning fossil fuels. When burned, fossil fuel produces greenhouse gases that lead to global warming and also damages the planet in various ways. The carbon tax seeks to consider the actual costs of burning fossil fuels. The end game of the carbon tax is ensuring that manufacturers of the carbon products are those who incur the external costs. An example of another Pigovian tax that is commonly used in Europe is the tax levied on plastic bags and paper bags. This has encouraged consumers to bring their reusable bags from home to prevent using plastic or paper. Plastic is an example of burning fossil fuels that cause damages to marine life, while paper bags promote deforestation. All of these examples of products lead to negative externality, whose prices fail to consider the costs incurred by society. The executed taxes are measures for redistributing costs to the manufacturers and users that produce these negative externalities.

A Case Study of Food-waste Collections in Swedish Municipalities

By 2015, two-thirds of the Swedish municipalities have initiated systems for source separation from the food waste. Food waste is gathered from schools and restaurants. The Swedish government uses two different techniques for separating wastes from household foods from the residual wastes. The first system is where residual and food wastes are placed in various containers. In the other method, there is only one garbage container in use. However, the food and residual wastes are still separated, either into various colored bags or compartments that are subjected to automatic optical storing in a specialized facility. All the food waste that is collected is incinerated. In almost half of the municipalities collecting food waste, the households must participate. Where there is voluntary sorting, the economic incentives, including the lower waste rates for the homes that participate, are used for inducing households to get involved. Besides, municipalities have monitored the sorting initiatives to an extent, but the monitoring at household levels is not possible for multi-family housing, where the wastes have been deposited unanimously. Different methods are used for ensuring compliance. For example, single-family households are informed through mail or telephone that the sorting impacts are not satisfactory.

Assessment of Effectiveness of BE Protecting the Environment

the effectiveness of these approaches can be explained through the conventional economic theory. This is obtained from the standard doctrine, where a person has to pay the lowest possible taxes and wages, charge the highest rents and prices, and not give away anything unless the gift provides compensatory advantages. Through the environmental policies, four aspects are realized using the conventional economic theory, including sustained growth of the economy that is measured relative to the gross national product. The free markets that are not restricted by the government generally lead to the most effective and socially maximum resource allocation. Economic globalization is also caused by conventional economic theories, including the removal of barriers to the free goods flow and money in all places in the world, increasing economic effectiveness, creating employment opportunities, and increasing the choices for consumers. To this end, the primary duty the government is offering the necessary infrastructure for advancing and enforcing the rule of law according to contracts and property rights. Consumption of energy leads to global and domestic externalities shown through carbon emissions and air pollution, while using water reduces the available water for environmental flows, and leads to possible scarcity for future generations. There is a substantial duty for economists to determine public policy because organizations supplying water and energy to the homes are heavily regulated and public monopolies.

A major theme is that for these markets, extrinsic and intrinsic motivations guide the final decisions about consumption. Not only do households conserve water and energy to minimize bills but also receive utility from the altruism or warm glow linked with conservation. These dual sets of motivations have opened up policies that go beyond the traditional economic incentivization, such as subsidies and prices, to tap into the moral or social motivations for reducing the consumption of resources. The availability of various incentives has added complexity to the environment of choice and making field experiments the best steps towards disentangling the causal methods that determine the behaviour of consumers. Economist has also advocated for the monetary incentives for correcting the failures within the market, including the externalities. Regardless, there is a lacking political will or concern about equity that restricts the use of financial incentives for promoting the conservation of resources. The political reality has coincided with the increased use of applied BE that has used the changes in information or architecture for modification of consumer behaviour without making significant price changes.

Conclusion

As shown, BE focuses on people having cognitive limitations, which makes them arrive at irrational decisions. Policymakers in the community and central levels have used various initiatives towards improving the use of community resources. Consumers also make decisions relying on the contributions to protecting the environment to realize the best benefits for the environment. To this end, environmental economists have used the experimental method for generating knowledge about different behaviours that affect the environment, including standard pool extraction, pollution, and the conservation of energy. Economists claim that the costs from the negative externalities, including pollution to the environment, are caused by society and not the producers. Some of the applied approaches include the Pigovian tax that discourages actions that impose costs of production to third parties and the community entirely. An example of Sweden shows how BE is used in daily practice, where it has implemented a policy that encourages households into recycling a particular waste faction that affects readiness for recycling other waste fractions in the process. On the same note, social comparisons have led to essential treatment impacts that are efficient compared to information-based approaches, including the conservation tips. This study provides policy recommendations for countries that have not realized success with better control over their environments.

References

Lanz, B., Wurlod, J. D., Panzone, L., & Swanson, T. (2018). The behavioral effect of pigovian regulation: Evidence from a field experiment. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 87, 190-205.

List, J. A., & Price, M. K. (2016). The use of field experiments in environmental and resource economics. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 10(2), 206-225.