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.

Pourquoi prend-on ou non des risques ? Pourquoi ne recycle-t-on pas davantage ? En situation d'incertitude, quels prix immobiliers peut-on anticiper ? Pour d'éventuelles explications et pronostics concernant ces questions, les principes d'économie comportementale peuvent être invoqués. L'économie comportementale (CE) est l'association de la psychologie et de l'économie ayant pour but de donner une explication aux comportements observés sur les marchés, comportements humains faisant preuve de rationalité limitée et de raisonnements complexes (Mullainathan et Thaler, 2000). L'étude de l'économie comportementale a inspiré un grand nombre de théories différentes et a été utilisée dans de nombreuses applications empiriques et cette thèse suit le même schéma en explorant différentes applications de l'économie comportementale. Cette thèse développe trois nouvelles extensions de l'économie comportementale aux champs du management, du choix en termes de politiques et en termes de décision d'investissement immobilier. / Why do we take risks or we do not? Why do not we recycle more? Under uncertainty what do we expect will happen to our home prices? These and many other questions are asked on daily basis.For possible explanations and answers to these and similar questions principles of behavioural economics can be used. Behavioural economics (BE) is the combination of psychology and economics that investigates what happens in markets in which some of agents display human limitations and complications (Mullainathan and Thaler, 2000). Behavioural economics provides more realistic psychological foundations to increase explanatory and predictive power of economic theory. The study of behavioural economics has inspired a number of different theories and has been used in many applications, and this thesis follows the same path and investigates different applications of behavioural economics. This thesis explores three novel applications of behavioural economics to management, policy making and property investment decision making.

Conspicuous consumption is a form of economic behaviour in which social pressure influences consumption decisions. Considering the current understanding of the detrimental ecological impact of excessive consumption practices, this paper overviews the potential to lessen wasteful consumption trends by utilising conspicuous consumption. This paper overviews research into this phenomenon, commencing with Thorstein Veblen’s work at the end of the nineteenth century. Combining this with research from sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this paper suggests potential indicators of sustainable consumption tendencies, including personality traits and group dynamics. The empirical aspect of this study successfully replicates the findings of a recent investigation into conspicuous consumption; that is, that consumption increases when conducted in public and income is linked to status. This study has been updated to include various aspects of sustainability behaviour and knowledge and has found trends associated with students of sustainability in Uppsala, Sweden. Furthermore, this paper suggests that the encouragement of conspicuous forms of sustainability could inspire sustainable consumption trends, or potentially lead to a reduction of overall consumption. Finally, this paper makes recommendations for policy makers in order to encourage social sustainability practices, building upon nascent movements such as 'Flygskam' ('Flight Shame') and successful anti-smoking strategies.

An aging Swedish population is putting an increased pressure on the Swedish pension system. To address this, the Swedish pension system was reformed in the late 1990s. This reformation resulted in an increased individual responsibility for pension investments among the Swedish population. The individual responsibility has shown to be challenging for many since they feel a great uncertainty in this area. Adding to the notion that the Swedish population is aging; young Swedes are also entering the working life later than before, without planning to retire later than the current seniors. This will implicate that a smaller part of the retirement payments will come from the national public pension, making the individual's pension planning more important. This means that the role of occupational pension and private savings has and will grow in importance years to come.Even so, private pension savings among young people is decreasing. Young people born between 1980 and 2000, often denoted Millennials (also called Generation Y) in literature, are an interesting cohort to research, since they will be the first generation to experience the full impact of the new Swedish pension system. Recent studies indicate that this generation has low interest for pension planning and that they find information about pensions hard to understand. The study will, therefore, investigate how Swedish Millennials could become better informed, engaged and active in their pension planning.The study was conducted through interviews with five representatives from the Swedish pension industry and a survey with 146 Swedish Millennials.Findings indicated that the Millennials’ current attitudes towards pension have a negative impact on their pension planning behaviour. It has been concluded that Millennials engagement to pension planning can be strengthened by improving four factors: Relevance, Content, Channels and Motivation

This thesis acknowledges the increasingly important issue of global freshwater scarcity. It focuses on water consumption in private households and examines whether social nudging, specifically the focus theory of normative conduct, can serve as a tool to reduce it. This is examined through action research conducted on the island of Gotland, Sweden, in cooperation with the local major housing company GotlandsHem. Despite some limitations, the findings show with a significance of 0.033 that, on average, almost 50 litres of water less were used weekly by each household after two social nudging interventions. This corresponds to 7,472.99 litres for all 151 nudged households. The findings show that the research design represents a way for housing companies to use the focus theory of normative conduct from the field of social nudging to reduce their tenants’ water consumption.

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

<p>The overarching theme of this research is about environmental microplastic pollution, and how much various entities are willing to sacrifice economically to obtain a cleaner environment. To gauge such willingness, this research utilizes various economic measures that have been widely used, albeit with novel modifications. The focus of this research is on stated preferences about microplastic pollution. The topic of microplastics is still very novel, and market players on the demand side or on the supply side have yet to provide products that deal with this new pollutant. This lack has necessitated the need for stated preference research. This research delves into this novel environmental problem from various viewpoints.</p> <p> Chapter 1 of this research is about how much the US adult population is willing to sacrifice to obtain an environment that is less impacted by microplastic pollution. The results show that US adults in general possess a willingness to obtain an environment free from microplastics. However, a sizable minority of US adults do not show such willingness as well. Such results remained true even when information about microplastic pollution were provided to all respondents before preference elicitation. </p> <p> Chapter 2 investigates how much consumers in different countries will diverge about their willingness to pay for seafood that has less microplastic contamination. The countries chosen differed widely in their seafood consumption habits. Thus, it was hypothesized that such differences will lead to contrasts in their willingness to pay for less contaminated seafood. The hypothesis was found to be true but not in the way that was expected. The results show that frequent consumers of seafood had less willingness to pay when compared to others, although in whole all consumers showed willingness to avoid microplastics in their seafood. </p> <p> Chapter 3 makes use of the same data as Chapter 2 but looks at possible reasons for the disparity in responses besides factors explored in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 focuses on the cultural differences to explain the differences in behavior. To do so, it utilizes the Value-Belief-Norm theory widely employed in past research but modifies it to account for a form of hypothetical bias. The research delves into the relationships between many factors of interest that affect environmentally friendly consumption behavior and the findings show that a certain cultural tendency is central to such behavior, at least for microplastics. </p> <p> The research has done its best to research into the economic relationship between microplastic contamination of the environment and how much various individuals are willing to sacrifice to obtain an environment that is less impacted by such pollution. The findings here show that there is room for improvement in the way the microplastic pollution problem is being handled. However, in all settings the results show that a sizable majority want to be less impacted by microplastic pollution, a key takeaway for all interested parties.</p>

This study analyses the perception of green bonds in relation to the ESRS (Environmental Sustainability Regulation Standards), in a high-interest-rate environment, using behavioural economic theory, in the case of Sweden and Norway. The research questions focus on nudging strategies, willingness to pay, and the case of Sweden being a full EU member and Norway being part of the EEA collaboration. (Green) Nudging is a concept in behavioural economic theory referring to interventions to direct individuals' behaviour in a desired way without the use of force. There are several regulatory initiatives in the EU, such as the ESRS and CSRD and the voluntary EU Green bond standard, with an impact on green bonds within the built environment, for example seen in the use of proceeds. Previous research shows that the application of behavioural economic concepts, such as nudging, can be intertwined with the positive effects on sustainable practices. The chosen methods for this study were both qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative part consisted of 14 semi-structured interviews (with open and closed questions) and a quantitative part of a numerical analysis based on the Likert-scale questionnaire. The two-sample t-tests in MATLAB show, at a significance level of 0.05, a failure to reject the null hypothesis, set as showing no difference between the respondents in Sweden and Norway – for a specific Likert-scale question. The one-sample t-test in MATLAB show, at a significance level of 0.05, a significant difference from a neutral answer score, of 4, regarding Likert-scale questions relating to various factors, such as default framing, feedback/goal-setting, and social (green) reference nudging. Five conclusions have been identified based on the findings. Firstly, Sweden and Norway share similar positive views towards working green and using green bonds. For example, linking GHG-emission metrics in the use-of-proceeds to convey (green) market signals. Secondly, the present green bond market seems slightly more developed in Sweden compared to Norway. However, the study did not analyse to which extent and maturation. Thirdly, the adaptation, implementation, and perceived positive effects of ESRS seem to be similar in both Sweden and Norway. Fourthly, concepts such as default framing, feedback/goal-setting, and social (green) reference nudging, seem to affect the use of green bonds in Sweden and Norway, which may imply green nudges are fruitful. Fifthly, a higher interest rate environment influences the interest and issuance of green bonds but is not the most central factor since there seems to be an interest in sustainable financed activities long-term. This study’s findings are positive from a long-term perspective regarding social and environmentally sustainable development. A greenium and a willingness to pay, WTP, for long-term sustainability, may suggest considering also the ecological, social, and societal, relative to the economic parameters. I am happy to recommend further research in this area, for example in behavioural economics and green nudging. / I denna studie undersöks synen på gröna obligationer i relation till EU-regelverket ESRS (Environmental Sustainability Regulation Standards) i den bebyggda miljön, i Sverige och Norge, med utgångspunkt i beteendeekonomisk teori. De frågeställningar som varit vägledande i arbetet rör nudging-strategier, willingness to pay (WTP, betalningsvilja) samt hur organisationer i Sverige, som fullvärdig EU-medlem, och i Norge, som del av EES-samarbetet, förhåller sig till gröna obligationer. Nudging (grön nudging) som koncept inom beteendeekonomisk teori refererar till åtgärder som används för att styra individers beteende i en önskvärd riktning utan tvång. I tidigare forskning uppmärksammas att flertalet regelverk inom EU som ESRS men även CSRD och EU Green bond standard, visat sig vara betydelsefulla för användningen av gröna obligationer, exempelvis vid affärsmässig kapitalanvändning (use of proceeds). I beteendeekonomisk teori framhålls vidare att nudging och betalningsvilja kan ha positiva effekter för miljö och hållbarhet. Både kvalitativ och kvantitativ metod har använts i studien. Den kvalitativa delen grundas i 14 semi-strukturerade intervjuer (med både öppna och slutna frågor). Den kvantitativa delen grundas i den numeriska analysen baserat på Likert-enkäten. Studiens resultat visar att beteendeekonomisk teori kan vara relevant för att förstå hur gröna obligationer kan användas för hållbara initiativ som rör bebyggd miljö, och återspeglas i respondenternas svar både i Sverige och Norge. De tvåsidiga t-testerna i MATLAB visar att det, på en 0.05 signifikansnivå, ej går att förkasta noll-hypotesen om att det inte föreligger någon skillnad mellan respondenter i Sverige och Norge – för en specifik fråga med Likert-skala – frågor relaterade till grön nudging (default/framing, social reference nudge) samt till betalningsvilja, WTP, för gröna initiativ. De ensidiga t-testerna visar, på en 0.05 signifikansnivå, en signifikant skillnad från neutral svarspoäng om 4, gällande de frågor med Likert-skala som relaterar till faktorer såsom default framing, feedback/goal-setting, and social (green) reference nudge. Fem slutsatser har dragits: (1) Sverige och Norge delar en positiv syn på användning av gröna obligationer. Exempelvis publiceras gröna marknadssignaler, mätvärden kring GHG-utsläpp, i affärsplaner, use of proceeds. (2) Nuvarande grön obligationsmarknad tycks vara något mer utvecklad i Sverige än i Norge. (3) Användning, mottagande, implementering och upplevd positiv effekt av ESRS är liknande i både Sverige och Norge. (4) Koncept som default framing, feedback/goal-setting och social (grön) referens nudging, tycks påverka användning av gröna obligationer i Sverige och Norge och kan vara initiativ i riktning mot en hållbart finansierad verksamhet. (5) En högre räntemiljö påverkar intresse och emission av gröna obligationer men är inte den mest centrala faktorn för gröna obligationer eftersom det ändå, trots förändringar i räntemiljö i både Sverige och Norge, bland annat föreligger en viss betalningsvilja (WTP), för en mer långsiktigt hållbar utveckling, miljömässigt och socialt. Sammanfattningsvis visar studien att synen på de nya policy- och regelverken sammanflätade med ESRS, är positiv, i både Sverige och Norge. En grön premie (greenium) och en WTP för en mer långsiktigt hållbar utveckling tyder också på att man bör ta hänsyn till inte endast ekonomiska parametrar utan även ekologiska, sociala och samhälleliga.

<p dir="ltr">This thesis explores various dimensions of strategic communication, cooperation, and information design within economic and organizational contexts. </p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">Chapter 2 investigates whether the Law Merchant system can enhance cooperation among agents in a repeated interaction setting and how the presence of bribery affects this dynamic. The study finds that the Honest Law Merchant system does not significantly improve cooperation compared to a baseline scenario without such an institution, while the introduction of bribery further diminishes cooperative behavior. These findings suggest that while judicial enforcement mechanisms hold promise for promoting cooperation, their effectiveness can be undermined by corrupt practices. </p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">Chapter 3 experimentally investigates behavioral spillovers between two social dilemma type games. In our experiments, subjects play Prisoner’s Dilemma game (PD) and Public Goods game (PGG) simultaneously, where the opponents of the two games do not overlap. I vary the level of strategic uncertainty in PD game and test how this affects subject's contributing behavior in PGG, which is held constant across treatments. I find that behavioral spillover exists in our setting and comes in an asymmetric form. When people are in an environment where cooperation is easy to sustain in the PD game, the PGG contributions do not increase much, compared to the baseline treatment when the PGG is played alone. However, when in the setting where cooperation is difficult to sustain in the PD game, PGG contributions decrease significantly.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">Chapter 4, a joint work with Xinxin Lyu, chapter extends the work from Chapter 3 by exploring the differences in between individuals and teams. The study employs the Individual Evolutionary Learning (IEL) model and additional team experimental treatments. Initial results show that teams exhibit higher cooperation and contribution levels compared to individuals, but these advantages diminish over time, particularly in environments with lower strategic uncertainty. The findings provide insights into group dynamics and the challenges teams face in sustaining cooperation, with significant implications for economic and organizational contexts.</p>

The understanding that humans are bounded in their rationality has been proven to manifest in complex decision making as a result of a limit in the amount of information available, the cognitive limitations of the mind and the amount of time available in which to make a decision. Because of this, humans have been known to appeal to heuristics and the rules of thumb (termed 'satisficing‘) when making decisions, resulting in biased probability judgments and not maximizing expected utility. Corporate application of bounded rationality is still very limited. This study builds on and advances the study and application of bounded rationality in corporate environments, using climate change response as a real-life situation, and in a circular fashion help explain some of the debates and paradoxes that agitate researchers from the climate change community. Using a mixed methods comparative case study of two organisations‘ responses to climate change, the study theorises that competitive market forces and the ability of organisations to learn from other organisations limits the levels of 'satisficing‘ in strategic decision making. Instead, the limited amount of information and the fear of the unknown cause organizations to approach the subject cautiously. A tactical interpretive climate change response framework emerges. / Business Management / D.B.L.