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Behavioural economic applications to climate change mitigation and adaptation: public good games and risk experiments
Includes bibliographical references.
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| Main Author: | |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
School of Economics
2015
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| _version_ | 1867613824783220736 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Brick, Kerri |
| author2 | Visser, Martine |
| author_browse | Brick, Kerri Visser, Martine |
| author_facet | Visser, Martine Brick, Kerri |
| author_sort | Brick, Kerri |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Includes bibliographical references. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/12709 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:42:17.661Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publishDateRange | 2015 |
| publishDateSort | 2015 |
| publisher | School of Economics |
| publisherStr | School of Economics |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/12709 Behavioural economic applications to climate change mitigation and adaptation: public good games and risk experiments Brick, Kerri Visser, Martine Includes bibliographical references. This thesis contributes to the economics of climate change by incorporating insights from behavioural economics. As both mitigation and adaptation are components of any climate change strategy, the four papers presented here use laboratory and field experiments to examine different dimensions of individuals' mitigation and adaptive behaviour. The papers in Section 1 utilise framed public good games to focus on two different aspects of the public goods dilemma synonymous with climate change mitigation. In this context, the first paper 'What is fair? An experimental guide to climate negotiations' examines the degree to which the use of particular burden-sharing principles in multilateral climate change negotiations reflects self-interest. The multi-country public good game is conducted with a sample of individuals from the United States, European Union, China, India and South Africa. The results signal the use of the historical and future polluter-pays rules by American and Chinese participants to reflect self-interest. The potential for groups of heterogeneous individuals to meet a collective emission-reduction target through individual contributions is examined in the second paper: "Cooperation and Climate Change: Can Communication Facilitate the Provision of Public Goods in Heterogeneous Agents?" Heterogeneity is framed as differences in participants' marginal abatement costs. While communication promotes cooperation, even when heterogeneity is present, the non-binding nature of communication results in the two dominant contribution strategies of free-riding and perfect-cooperation. The papers in Section 2 examine the role of risk and uncertainty in individuals' adaptive strategies. The correlation between risk attitudes and individuals' flood adaptation strategies is examined in the third paper: "Risk Attitudes and Adaptation: Experimental Evidence from a Flood Prone Urban Informal Settlement in South Africa." Risk attitudes are elicited from a series of lottery tasks conducted across a sample of individuals living in a flood-prone urban informal settlement. The results indicate that individuals adopting more effective (and costly) adaptation strategies are more risk averse. The fourth paper "Risk Preferences, Technology Adoption and Insurance Uptake" uses lottery tasks and a framed insurance game to examine whether the provision of a framed index insurance product induces individuals to opt into riskier but potentially more profitable activities. Experiment participants are small-scale and subsistence urban food growers. The results indicate that risk-averse individuals are more likely to opt into traditional agriculture and are less likely to use modern farming inputs that require financing. 2015-05-04T07:04:42Z 2015-05-04T07:04:42Z 2014 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12709 eng application/pdf School of Economics Faculty of Commerce University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Brick, Kerri Behavioural economic applications to climate change mitigation and adaptation: public good games and risk experiments |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Behavioural economic applications to climate change mitigation and adaptation: public good games and risk experiments |
| title_full | Behavioural economic applications to climate change mitigation and adaptation: public good games and risk experiments |
| title_fullStr | Behavioural economic applications to climate change mitigation and adaptation: public good games and risk experiments |
| title_full_unstemmed | Behavioural economic applications to climate change mitigation and adaptation: public good games and risk experiments |
| title_short | Behavioural economic applications to climate change mitigation and adaptation: public good games and risk experiments |
| title_sort | behavioural economic applications to climate change mitigation and adaptation public good games and risk experiments |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12709 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT brickkerri behaviouraleconomicapplicationstoclimatechangemitigationandadaptationpublicgoodgamesandriskexperiments |