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

Henning Schaak (), Jens Rommel, Julian Sagebiel (), Jesús Barreiro-Hurlé, Douadia Bougherara, Luigi Cemablo (), Marija Cerjak (), Tajana Čop (), Mikolaj Czajkowski, María Espinosa-Goded (), Julia Höhler, Carl-Johan Lagerkvist, Macario Rodríguez-Entrena, Annika Tensi (), Sophie Thoyer (), Marina Tomić Maksan (), Riccardo Vecchio () and Katarzyna Zagórska ()
Additional contact information
Henning Schaak: Department of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna
Julian Sagebiel: Biodiversity Economics, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Luigi Cemablo: Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II
Marija Cerjak: Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb
Tajana Čop: Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb
María Espinosa-Goded: Faculty of Economic and Business Science, University of Sevilla
Annika Tensi: Business Economics Group, Wageningen University & Research
Sophie Thoyer: CEE-M, Univ. Montpellier, CNRS, INRAE, Institut Agro
Marina Tomić Maksan: Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb
Riccardo Vecchio: Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II
Katarzyna Zagórska: Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

No 2023-03, Working Papers from Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

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; Meta-science; Experimental economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C99 D81 Q19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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https://www.wne.uw.edu.pl/download_file/2547/0 First version, 2023 (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: How Well Can Experts Predict Farmers' Choices in Risky Gambles? (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:war:wpaper:2023-03

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