Using Choice Framing to Improve the Design of Agricultural Subsidy Schemes

Neel Ocean and Peter Howley

Land Economics, 2021, vol. 97, issue 4, 933-950

Abstract: Existing agri-environment schemes have suffered from poor uptake and high burden. This article leverages behavioral economics to test choice framing in three hypothetical policy scenarios. Using a randomized survey experiment on U.K. farmers, we find that changing policy framing based on mental accounting and loss aversion can significantly influence agricultural policy–related decision making. Our findings highlight the following considerations for the design of future policy: (1) whether application costs are integrated into or segregated from a subsidy is important, (2) the labeling of agricultural schemes may affect expenditure allocation, and (3) reference points can affect the evaluation of new scheme alternatives.

JEL-codes: Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
Note: DOI: 10.3368/le.97.4.041620-0055R1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://le.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/97/4/933
A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uwp:landec:v:97:y:2021:i:4:p:933-950

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Land Economics from University of Wisconsin Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().