The Behavioral Economics of Extreme Event Attribution

Florian Diekert, Timo Goeschl and Christian König-Kersting

No 741, Working Papers from University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics

Abstract: Can Attribution Science, a method for quantifying – ex post – humanity’s contribution to adverse climatic events, induce pro-environmental behavioral change? We conduct a conceptual test of this question by studying, in an online experiment with 3,031 participants, whether backwards-looking attribution affects future decisions, even when seemingly uninformative to a consequentialist decision-maker. By design, adverse events can arise as a result of participants’ pursuit of higher payoffs (anthropogenic cause) or as a result of chance (natural cause). Treatments vary whether adverse events are causally attributable and whether attribution can be acquired at cost. We find that ex-post attributability is behaviorally relevant: Attribution to an anthropogenic cause reduces future anthropogenic stress and leads to fewer adverse events compared to no attributability and compared to attribution to a natural cause. Average willingness-to-pay for ex-post attribution is positive. The conjecture that Attribution Science can be behaviorally impactful and socially valuable has empirical merit.

Keywords: Extreme event attribution; attribution science; behavioral change; cause dependence; online experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-01-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
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