How Well Can Experts Predict Farmers' Choices in Risky Gambles?

Henning Schaak (henning.schaak@boku.ac.at), Jens Rommel, Julian Sagebiel, Jesus Barreiro-Hurlé, Douadia Bougherara, Luigi Cemablo, Marija Cerjak, Tajana Čop, Mikołaj Czajkowski, María Espinosa-Goded, Julia Höhler, Carl-Johan Lagerkvist, Macario Rodríguez-Entrena, Annika Tensi, Sophie Thoyer, Marina Maksan, Riccardo Vecchio and Katarzyna Zagórska
Additional contact information
Henning Schaak: BOKU - Universität für Bodenkultur Wien = University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences [Vienne, Autriche]
Julian Sagebiel: iDiv - German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research
Jesus Barreiro-Hurlé: IFAPA - Junta de Andalucía
Douadia Bougherara: CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier
Luigi Cemablo: University of Naples Federico II = Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II
Marija Cerjak: UNIZG - Faculty of Agriculture [Zagreb] - University of Zagreb
Tajana Čop: UNIZG - Faculty of Agriculture [Zagreb] - University of Zagreb
Mikołaj Czajkowski: UW - Uniwersytet Warszawski [Polska] = University of Warsaw [Poland] = Université de Varsovie [Pologne]
María Espinosa-Goded: IFAPA - Junta de Andalucía
Julia Höhler: WUR - Wageningen University and Research [Wageningen]
Annika Tensi: WUR - Wageningen University and Research [Wageningen]
Sophie Thoyer: CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier
Riccardo Vecchio: University of Naples Federico II = Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II
Katarzyna Zagórska: UW - Uniwersytet Warszawski [Polska] = University of Warsaw [Poland] = Université de Varsovie [Pologne]

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Abstract: Risk is ubiquitous in agriculture and a core interest of agricultural economists. While farmers' risk preferences are well studied, there is limited knowledge on the perspectives of other stakeholders on farmers' risk preferences. We address this gap by eliciting predictions for a multiple-price-list task from 561 students, farm advisors, and experts from Italy, Poland, Croatia, Spain, France, Sweden, and the Netherlands. First, we investigate whether the risk preferences of farmers from different European production systems differ in terms of predictability for the experts. Second, we compare the predictions of different groups of experts, as well as their accuracy. Third, we evaluate whether the accuracy of predictions can be improved by changing incentive mechanisms. Overall, we find substantial variation in individual predictions. Yet, average predictions are close to the averages of the observed responses of farmers. We find that an international group of researchers in experimental economics provides more accurate predictions than farm advisors and other experts or students of agriculture. Differences in predictions by production systems are small. Incentivizing predictions by either a tournament scheme (the best prediction receives a reward) or high accuracy (randomly selected participants are paid depending on the quality of their prediction) do not strongly affect the accuracy, but may slightly reduce noise in the predictions.

Keywords: Risk attitudes Expert predictions Expert forecasts Multiple prices lists Metascience Experimental economics; Risk attitudes; Expert predictions; Expert forecasts; Multiple prices lists; Metascience; Experimental economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04972076v1
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Working Paper: How Well Can Experts Predict Farmers’ Choices in Risky Gambles? (2023)
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