EPoS Workshop
Climate Action
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
8.45-13.00
Unterrichtsraum 3, SoWi, Universitätsstraße 15, Innsbruck
Please register in advance till 28.5.2023.
8.45
Welcome
9.00 – 10.00
Scientific Session 1
Raphael Epperson, Department of Public Finance,
“Does Lobbying Discourage Individuals from Fighting Climate Change?”
Dominik Duell, Department of Political Science,
“Deliberating Climate Policy: How Speech, Information, and Decision Power Shape Citizens' Preferences on Fighting Climate Change”
Jana Sophie Kesenheimer, Department of Psychology,
“A psychological view of climate change mitigation: The subjectivity of pro-environmental behavior”
Christian König, Department of Banking and Finance,
“Climate Crisis Attitudes among Financial Professionals and Climate Experts”
Natalie Struwe, Department of Public Finance,
“Including Donors in the Provision of Payments for Ecosystem Services”
10.00
Coffe break
10.30-11.30
Scientific Session 2
Sebastian Bachler, Department of Banking and Finance,
“Carbon Pricing in a CRSD Context: Experimental Evidence from the U.S.A.”
Patrick Thomberger, Department of Public Finance,
“Energy footprints and the international trade network: A new dataset. Is the European Union doing it better?”
Stefan Häussler, Department of Information Systems, Production and Logistics Management,
“Using optimization models for more energy efficient steel-production: A case study of an Austrian steel manufacturer”
Marica Valente, Department of Economics,
“Policy evaluation of waste pricing programs using heterogeneous causal effect estimation”
Robert Steiger, Department of Public Finance,
“What the new Loss and Damage fund needs for electorate approval: Evidence from Austria and the Netherlands”
11.30
Coffe break
12.00
Keynote Lecture
Lata Gangadharan, Monash University (Australia)
“Impact of climate change policies: Behavioural insights”
A large proportion of carbon dioxide emissions are due to the burning of fossil fuels for electricity generation. Environmental markets provide the most cost-effective way to reduce these harmful emissions, however the economic and environmental impacts of these markets can depend on their institutional design and how people respond to them. In the first part of the talk, the focus will be on the design of a carbon market (the US Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative). Our evidence suggests that the price of carbon in this market can be heavily influenced by the regulator’s design choices rather than the cost of pollution control which may have long-run efficiency impacts. In the second part, I will discuss the design of electricity pricing schemes which have the potential for significant efficiency gains. One such example is a dynamic electricity pricing whereby the marginal price paid by consumers changes frequently. However, given the essential nature of electricity, a concern for regulators with a consumer protection mandate is whether households comprehend the nature of price risks inherent to these dynamic real-time electricity pricing plans and whether they are able to manage these risks? For instance, many households on these plans experienced severe financial distress in the aftermath of the winter storm in Texas in 2021 and were caught unaware that electricity prices could be extremely high, a feature that is inherent to their plan. We develop a randomized and incentivized experiment calibrated to real-world price distributions to examine the plans households choose when faced with real time pricing products, with and without risk protection, and a flat rate pricing plan. Further, we test their understanding of the financial risks involved with real time pricing electricity plans. We find that (a) probabilistic risk disclosure elicits greater demand for real-time pricing products relative to a low-risk fixed-price alternative but without improving.
Lata Gangadharan is a Professor of Economics and Joe Isaac Chair of Business and Economics at Monash University. She is an experimental and behavioural economist. A key focus of her research has been on developing novel experimental methods to study economic and social institutions. Her recent research focuses on incentives and preferences and addresses the following topics: peer sanctioning to mitigate the effect of social and environmental dilemmas, propensity for prosocial and antisocial behaviour, incentives for compliance and auditing, and gender and social identity. Her research has been published in several general interest and field journals, such as, Science, Nature Communications, American Economic Review, European Economic Review, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Experimental Economics and Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization. She currently serves as a Co-Editor at the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, an Associate Editor at Management Science and the Journal of Economic Psychology and is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
13.00
Lunch Buffet
Research Area EPoS – Economy, Politics & Society
Universität Innsbruck
Eva Zipperle-Mirwald
Room o.1.3
Universitätsstraße 15
6020 Innsbruck
Österreich
+43 512 507-39870
epos@uibk.ac.at
www.facebook.com/fspEPoS
Organizing committee
Luisa Lore, Sarah Flecke, Natalie Struwe, Rene Schwaiger, Dominik Duell, Esther Blanco and Markus Walzl
Data protection notice
Photographs (or screenshots) and/or films may be taken during this event. By attending the event, you acknowledge that photographs and video footage of you may be used for press coverage and published in various (social) media, publications and on websites of the University of Innsbruck. For further information on data protection, please see our privacy policy at: www.uibk.ac.at/datenschutz
We ask you to travel in an environmentally friendly way! By public transport, on foot or by bicycle. There are sufficient bicycle parking spaces available. Information on public transport can be found at www.vvt.at