<p>This study examines several emerging topics in strategic communication and information design. The first chapter studies the role of verification in persuasion and its interaction with commitment in a Bayesian persuasion framework in which the sender is not fully bound by the committed plan. Both theoretically and experimentally, we demonstrate that making verification easier can significantly improve information transmission when commitment is low, but its effect is limited when commitment is high. However, empirically receivers do not respond as strongly as predicted by theory, which is consistent with base-rate neglect and conservatism. On the other hand, senders generally anticipate receivers' actions and best respond to the empirical behavior of receivers. We provide empirical implications for cases where verification is instrumental in improving information transmission and where it is not. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The second and third chapters are based on joint work with Dr. Collin Raymond. In the second chapter, we investigate how increasing the complexity of the message space in the presence of limited memory can reduce misrepresentation in strategic communication. We enrich a standard cheap talk game so that senders must communicate not just a payoff-relevant state, but also payoff-irrelevant attributes correlated with the state.  We show that increasing the set of attributes that may need to be reported (i.e., the complexity of the game) improves the amount of information transmitted in equilibrium. Our findings demonstrate that the reporting of redundant information may induce equilibria that feature improved outcomes compared to simpler, more direct reporting systems, and point out the importance of complexity when trying to induce truthful information revelation.</p> <p><br></p> <p>In the third chapter, we analyze some extensions on the effect of complexity. We present experimental evidence which shows that  too much of an increase in complexity leads to a reversal of those gains. Limited memory on the part of players, as well as the relative complexity faced by senders and receivers, drives these changes, and individuals experience cognitive costs when dealing with complex environments that they are willing to pay to avoid. </p> <p><br></p>

No description available.

This thesis aims to examine if the rise in crime, in the suburbs of the Stockholm region, can be explained by the effect of residential segregation on behaviour. The main focus of this thesis is the three primary approaches to economics of crime; Freeman’s (1999) cost-benefit analysis, Wynarczyk’s (2002) theory on intersubjectivity and morals affect on crime participation, and finally Feldman and Smith's (2014) analysis of how morals effect good and bad people. To investigate if the rise in crime can be explained by the effect of residential segregation on behaviour, an experimental questionnaire containing six fictitious scenarios isused with the aim of functioning as an experiment in a simplified form. The participants are randomly selected residents from different suburbs around Stockholm, with different ethnic backgrounds and from allages above 15. The experiment generated the data of 348 participants in total, where the participants are placed in different fictional scenarios. In each scenario the participants have to choose whether they would choose to commit crime or not given the context. The scenarios are followed by a shorter section with background questions about gender, age, ethnic background and where in Stockholm they live. With the generated data from the second shorter section we were able to perform logit regression analysis to see the correlations. We found that foreign-born individuals were most likely to commit crime in most scenarios but domestic-born individuals with domestic-born parents were more likely to commit crime when placed in scenarios that were very realistic for those who lived in the exposed suburbs where segregation and crime is very high. However, this result was not statistically significant, which means that further study with more observations could be more informative. This implies that a solution to diffuse crime geographically could be to reduce segregation by having more advantageous nodes, which refers to individuals that are willing to move to neighbourhoods that do not consist of their own kind, and therefore break the structures of parallel societies and have a more integrated society with less crime. In order to establish all the factors that affect crime participation linked to segregation, further research is recommended

People’s decisions regarding effort-based tasks such as engaging in physical activity depend on the subjective value of the activity: weighing the costs against the benefits (Chong et al., 2016). Exerting cognitive effort while performing one task negatively biases people's decisions to exert effort on subsequent cognitive tasks, suggesting a shift in their subjective valuation of the task due to mental fatigue (Kool & Botvinick, 2014). Similarly, exerting physical effort negatively biases decisions to further exert effort on a future physical task (Iodice et al., 2017a, Iodice et al., 2017b). The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of mental fatigue on people's decisions to engage in an acute bout of exercise and whether the effect of mental fatigue on decision-making was mediated by a benefit-cost analysis. Among those who decided to exercise, the study also aimed to investigate the relationship between mental fatigue and exercise behaviours during a self-selected, self-paced, bout of exercise. Recreationally active participants (N = 55, Mage = 19.04 ± 1.04 years) completed either a 10-minute, high cognitive demand (Stroop) task or low cognitive demand (documentary viewing) task to manipulate levels of mental fatigue. Participants then made a choice between engaging in a 20-minute self-paced moderate-to-vigorous intensity exercise task or a 20-minute non-exercise task. Prior to choosing, participants rated their mental fatigue and their perceived benefits and costs of the exercise task. The cognitive task had a strong effect on mental fatigue (p < .001, Cohen's d = 1.40). The mediation analysis showed no direct effect of mental fatigue on choice; however, there was a significant indirect effect indicating the benefit-cost score mediated the effect of mental fatigue on choice (95% C.I. = -.02 to -.0004). Higher levels of mental fatigue were associated with a lower benefit-cost score (r = -.33, p = .01) which, in turn, was associated with a decreased likelihood of choosing the exercise task (r = .31, p = .02). For those who chose to engage in the exercise task (N = 28), higher levels of mental fatigue were associated with higher ratings of perceived exertion (r = .38, p = .05). Findings provide insight into the effects of mental fatigue on people's exercise behaviours, illustrating a rational decision-making process that is dependent upon the subjective evaluation of the costs and benefits of engaging in physical activity or sedentary alternatives. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Decisions made by individuals planning for retirement may be myopic. One way of capturing this myopia is with quasi-hyperbolic discounting. It is well known that such preferences may explain why individuals fail to provide an adequate retirement income for themselves. In this thesis, the quasi-hyperbolic discounting model is applied to a number of other decisions and outcomes related to planning for retirement. There are three main focuses. Firstly, the thesis considers a model where individuals are quasi-hyperbolic discounters over both retirement and saving, and extends the results of Diamond and Köszegi (2003). It argues that mechanisms designed to overcome myopic saving decisions may lead to unplanned early retirement. This may depend on the form of income in retirement -- regular income options such as annuities offer commitment over overconsuming early in retirement, which makes early retirement less desirable to myopic retirees. Secondly, it tests these predictions using a new laboratory experiment. Over a two-month period, participants were asked to attend weekly sessions, and could leave the experiment (or "retire") in any week of their choosing. Part of their payment for attending these sessions was put aside and paid only after they had left. The results indicated that more impulsive individuals left the experiment earlier, both overall and relative to plans made in the first week of the experiment. Finally, this thesis presents a model of rising wages as a forced saving mechanism. Assuming individuals face some borrowing constraints, deferred wages implicitly place some earnings aside until much closer to retirement, when quasi-hyperbolic discounters save a greater fraction of their income, increasing total retirement wealth. It also shows that demand for rising wages should disappear for people with access to more direct saving commitment mechanisms, although when these schemes offer less commitment (due to early withdrawal or early retirement options), a combination of both mechanisms is preferred.

This study aims to generate a more robust understanding of public attitudes regarding non-renewable natural resource markets. Employing a comparative-historical case study method, it analyzes three waves of widespread fear that swept the United States over the course of the twentieth century regarding an imminent, irreversible shortage of oil. Each of these periods of fear over oil supply availability coincided with a significant rise in the price of crude oil, only to be followed by a sudden collapse as new production came onstream in response to higher prices. The study utilizes process tracing and pattern matching techniques to examine the linkages between fundamental supply-demand conditions in the crude oil market, oil price movements, and expert predictions of and other public expressions of belief that oil in the United States would become scarcer and more expensive in the future. This dissertation’s core arguments contribute to existing theoretical debates in three ways. First, by providing a comparative historical portrait of cyclical patterns in public and expert beliefs regarding non-renewable resource availability and long-term price behavior, the study puts contemporary debates over the future of oil supply in historical perspective. It allows the rampant claims of, and widespread belief in, a global shortage of oil that have gained popularity over the last decade—most notably, in the so-called “peak oil” movement—to be situated within a broader chronological context. It also extends and deepens earlier historical work analyzing oil shortage scares in the United States, both in terms of their underlying dynamics and their effect on federal government policy relative to the oil industry. Second, the study establishes the link between fundamental supply-demand conditions in the oil market, generally reflected in oil prices, and the degree of media attention given to, and apparent public belief in, an imminent, irreversible shortage of oil in the United States over the course of the twentieth century. In so doing, it demonstrates the applicability of Shiller’s (2000, 2005) conceptualization of new era economic theory formation and popularization to observed phenomena in the oil market, but with a crucial difference. Rather than new era economic thinking taking the form of unbounded optimism about the future, in the case of the oil market new era thinking has tended to be manifested as the pessimistic belief that an impending, irreversible shortage of oil would lead to a long-term, even perpetual, rise in oil prices. The study suggests two modifications to the concept that enhance its greater explanatory leverage with regard to exhaustible resource markets: one, that often the new era predictions most widely cited during shortage scares were actually made prior to the boom in prices, to little fanfare, but subsequently deemed prophetic by new era proponents; and two, that the new era narratives often contained normative elements. Moral judgments—in particular, condemnation of the oil economy’s degradation of the natural environment—have often intertwined with predictions that the oil supply was more limited than widely believed and that prices were destined to continue rising. Third, the study demonstrates that the concept of narratives of decline, as described by Bennett (2001) and Lieber (2008), constitutes a powerful theoretical lens through which to understand trends in popular opinion with regard to non-renewable resource availability, and to asset prices more generally—a link that has heretofore gone unrecognized. It finds that a positive feedback loop tended to exist between popular fears of a new era of oil shortages, marked by a long-term rise in prices, and related narratives of the environmental and relative political-economic decline of the United States.

The ability for domestic consumers to provide demand response to dynamic electricity pricing will become increasingly valuable for integrating the high penetrations of renewables that are expected to be connected to electricity networks in the future. The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether domestic consumers will be willing and able to provide demand response in such low-carbon futures. A broad approach is presented in this thesis, with research contributions on subjects including data privacy, behavioural economics, and battery modelling. The principle argument of the thesis is that studying the behaviour of consumers with grid-connected photovoltaic ('PV') systems can provide insight into how consumers might respond to dynamic pricing in future low-carbon power systems, as both experience irregular electricity prices that are correlated with intermittent renewable generation. Through a combination of statistical and qualitative methods, this thesis investigates the demand response behaviour of consumers with PV systems in the UK. The results demonstrate that these consumers exhibit demand response behaviour by increasing demand during the day and decreasing demand during the evening. Furthermore, this effect is more pronounced on days with higher irradiance. The results are novel in three ways. First, they provide quantified evidence that suggests that domestic consumers with PV systems engage in demand response behaviour. Second, they provide evidence of domestic consumers responding to irregular electricity prices that are correlated with intermittent renewable generation, thereby addressing the aim of this thesis, and supporting the assumption that consumers can be expected to respond to dynamic pricing in future markets with high penetrations of renewables. Third, they provide evidence of domestic consumers responding to dynamic pricing that is similar to real-time pricing, while prior evidence of this is rare and confined to the USA.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Bakgrund: E-handeln ökar för varje år och antal returer stiger i takt med detta. Då konkurrensen är hård inom e-handeln erbjuder företag idag allt mer bekväma samt snabba transportalternativ. Konsekvensen av detta har följaktligen resulterat i att många transporter idag går halvtomma, vilket bidrar till onödiga utsläpp. Samtidigt framhålls det att konsumenter blir allt mer miljömedvetna och värdesätter företag som aktivt arbetar med miljömässiga förbättringar. Denna studie har genom tidigare forskning funnit att det finns en tydlig skillnad mellan hur individer tror att de agerar och hur de i verkligheten fattar beslut. Nudging är ett styrningsverktyg som ämnar att minska detta gap genom att leda konsumenter till att välja det mest miljövänliga transportalternativet. Den begränsade forskning som i dagsläget finns kring nudging ger författarna goda grunder att hävda studiens relevans. Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att få större kunskap om konsumenters inställning till nudging inom e-handeln, gällande transportalternativ. Vidare syftar uppsatsen till att bidra med svar gällande om nudging är ett användbart verktyg att inkludera i ett e-handelsföretags arbete med miljömässig hållbarhet, samt undersöka vilken typ av nudge som skulle lämpa sig bäst. Metod: Denna tvärsnittsstudie har en kvalitativ forskningsdesign och utgår främst från en induktiv ansats. Den empiriska datainsamlingen består av 3 semi-strukturerade intervjuer samt 41 digitala enkäter med öppna frågor. Slutsats: Studiens datainsamling visar att det finns ett ökat intresse för miljöfrågor samt att det finns en stor vilja bland konsumenter att fatta mer medvetna beslut inom e-handeln, genom att få tillgång till tydligare information. Vidare visar studiens resultat att majoriteten av konsumenterna är positivt inställda till användningen av nudging inom e-handeln. Det framkom även att konsumenter motiveras mest av att presenteras med faktabaserad information gällande mer miljövänliga transportalternativ. När företag kommunicerar information till kunder är det viktigt att beakta valfrihet samt transparens för att få konsumentens tillit och förtroende. / Introduction: E-commerce is increasing each year and as a result the number of returns are increasing as well. While e-commerce is a competitive market, many companies offer comfortable and fast transportation options. As a consequence of this many transports are only filled halfway which leads to unnecessary emissions. Meanwhile, it is emphasized that consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious and values companies that are working actively with environmental improvements. This study has found through previous research that there is a clear difference between how individuals believe they act and how they actually make decisions. Nudging is a management tool which aims to reduce this gap by nudging consumers to choose the most environmentally friendly transportation option. The limited research that currently is available concerning nudging gives the authors grounds to claim the relevance of this study. Purpose: The aim of this paper is to gain greater knowledge of consumers 'attitude towards nudging within e-commerce, regarding transport options. Furthermore, the paper aims to contribute with answers regarding if nudging is a useful tool to incorporate in e-commerce's work with environmental sustainability, as well as investigating which type of nudge that would be preferable. Method: This cross-sectional study has a qualitative research design based on an mainly inductive approach. The empirical data collection consists of 3 semi-structured interviews and 41 digital questionnaires with open questions. Conclusion: The data collected in the study shows that there is an increased interest in environmental issues and that there is a great desire among consumers to make more informed decisions in e-commerce, by accessing clearer information. Furthermore, the results of the study show that most consumers have a positive attitude towards the use of nudging in e-commerce. Furthermore, consumers are the most motivated by facts regarding more environmentally friendly transport options. When companies communicate information to consumers, it is important to consider free choices and transparency in order to gain consumer confidence and trust.

Cette thèse traite des enjeux environnementaux et sanitaires de l’agriculture sous l’angle de l’économie comportementale. En partant de l’exemple emblématique fourni par la contestation sociale de l’usage des pesticides dans la filière vin, nous montrons pourquoi la réorientation durable du système productif ne peut s’affranchir d’une analyse des arbitrages effectués par les agents économiques. Du côté de la demande, nous mesurons expérimentalement l’effet concurrentiel des certifications (agriculture biologique) et des innovations technologiques (e.g. cépages résistants, réduction des sulfites) sur les préférences des consommateurs. Nous observons que ceux-ci sont prêts à revoir en partie leurs exigences gustatives en faveur d’un niveau élevé de qualité environnementale, mais que leurs motivations sont en partie liées à des attentes sanitaires, générant des signaux contradictoires pour l’offre. Le faible niveau d’information auquel ils ont accès constitue par ailleurs un frein à la sélection des meilleurs produits. Au niveau de l’offre, nous soutenons que la réponse à cette demande reste fortement limitée par l’inertie du système productif. Celle-ci peut être attribuée à une aversion au risque mais aussi, de nouveau, à un déficit informationnel, bien plus qu’à des comportements déviants liés au mimétisme, souvent incriminé en agriculture. Ce déficit porte cette fois sur les possibilités d’action de l’amont de la filière, dans notre cas les viticulteurs. Nous donnons alors des pistes d’orientation des politiques publiques de régulation, au niveau global ou au niveau plus local de la gouvernance d’entreprise, pour faciliter l’adéquation entre offre et demande sociétale. / This thesis deals with the impact of agriculture on health and the environment from a behavioural economics perspective. Focusing on the controversial use of pesticides in the winegrowing industry, I demonstrate the importance of considering the trade-offs made by economic actors in order to understand the obstacles hindering a shift to sustainable production. On the consumer side, I experimentally measure the competitive effect of certification (organic farming) and technological innovations (e.g. resistant grapevines, reduction of sulphites) on consumers’ preferences. I observe that consumers are partly willing to review their taste requirements in exchange for high environmental quality level, but that their motives are essentially health-oriented, generating contradictory signals towards producers. Besides, selecting the best products is hampered by the little information consumers are provided with. On the supply side, I argue that ability to meet demand is strongly limited by the inertia of the production system. This inertia can be attributed to risk aversion but again, to a large extent, to a lack of information, rather than being, as is often suggested in an agricultural context, the result of imitation. This lack of information this time concerns the various options available upstream, in this instance, on the part of winegrowers. I then provide guidelines for public regulatory policies, at global level or at more local level of corporate governance, to enable a match between supply and societal demand.