AbstractRecent work with Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) in development economics has contributed to economists' use of the experimental mindset to inform policy choices. Development scholars, however, question the authority of RCT evidence, and worry that the RCT trend will turn their profession away from theory and econometrics. We examine this challenge, as well as RCTs' role within the broader experimental area, with a thorough review of relevant literature. We find that generic RCT fears are overstated. Experimental methods should be evaluated as a tool to test theory, search for patterns, and to pre‐test new institutions. From this mindset, we see unexplored pathways that may benefit from the experimental mindset, further economic theory, and reduce poverty.
ABSTRACTMany poor countries remain trapped in a cycle of poverty and environmental degradation. Understanding how people react to existing and proposed solutions most likely can be improved using the methods of experimental economics. Experiments provide researchers a method to test theory, look for patterns of behavior, testbed economic institutions and incentives, and to educate people. Herein we explore how experimental economics has been used and could be used to help guide decision making to increase prosperity without overexploiting the resource base and environmental assets needed for basic survival.
AbstractWe examine the causes and policy implications of strategic (willful) ignorance of risk as an excuse to over-engage in risky health behavior. In an experiment on Copenhagen adults, we allow subjects to choose whether to learn the calorie content of a meal before consuming it and then measure their subsequent calorie intake. Consistent with previous studies, we find strong evidence of strategic ignorance: 46% of subjects choose to ignore calorie information, and these subjects subsequently consume more calories on average than they would have had they been informed. While previous studies have focused on self-control as the motivating factor for strategic ignorance of calorie information, we find that ignorance in our study is instead motivated by optimal expectations – subjects choose ignorance so that they can downplay the probability of their preferred meal being high-calorie. We discuss how the motivation matters to policy. Further, we find that the prevalence of strategic ignorance largely negates the effects of calorie information provision: on average, subjects who have the option to ignore calorie information consume the same number of calories as subjects who are provided no information.
AbstractThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic's first wave led to declining mental health and life satisfaction outcomes for college students, especially women. While women in undergraduate agricultural programs outperformed men academically prior to and during the pandemic, the achievement may have come at personal cost, especially for those women with fewer personal and environmental resiliency resources. Our research objective was to expand on personal, social, and environmental factors linked with lower mental health and life satisfaction scores for students in agriculture during the pandemic. We measured the influence of such factors across gender‐based mental health and life satisfaction outcomes. Our data were collected from 2030 students using an on‐line survey across six land‐grant university college of agriculture in agriculturally as many distinct regions of the United States. We estimated OLS and Ordered Probit models of their mental health and life satisfaction self‐assessments. Our findings reveal students' mental health and life satisfaction were reduced due to a paucity of personal (e.g., less future orientation or graduate school aspirations, food and housing insecurity, and personal health risks) and environmental (e.g., lower quality on‐line learning experiences, isolation, family health risk, discrimination experiences) resiliency resources. Our results suggest women were more likely than men to be adversely affected by reduced resiliency resources. These findings suggest university emergency response policies need to address students' needs for housing and food security, on‐line course development and delivery, tele health and mental health resources, broad social inclusion and diversity to decrease risk of female attrition and support all students in agricultural degree programs.
