Labels as nudges? An experimental study of car eco-labels

This article presents the results of a laboratory experiment and an online multi-country experiment testing the effect of motor vehicle eco-labels on consumers. The laboratory study featured a discrete choice task and questions on comprehension, while the ten countries online experiment included measures of willingness to pay and comprehension. Labels focusing on fuel economy or running costs are better understood, and influence choice about money-related eco-friendly behaviour. We suggest that this effect comes through mental accounting of fuel economy. In the absence of a cost saving frame, we do not find a similar effect of information on CO2 emissions and eco-friendliness. Labels do not perform as well as promotional materials. By virtue of being embedded into a setting designed to capture the attention, the latter are more effective. We found also that large and expensive cars tend to be undervalued once fuel economy is highlighted

Pathos & ethos: emotions and willingness to pay for tobacco products

In this article we use data from a multi-country Randomized Control Trial study on the effect of anti-tobacco pictorial warnings on an individual’s emotions and behavior. By exploiting the exogenous variations of images as an instrument, we are able to identify the effect of emotional responses. We use a range of outcome variables, from cognitive (risk perception and depth of processing) to behavioural (willingness to buy and willingness to pay). Our findings suggest that the odds of buying a tobacco product can be reduced by 80% if the negative affect elicited by the images increases by one standard deviation. More importantly from a public policy perspective, not all emotions behave alike, as eliciting shame, anger, or distress proves more effective in reducing smoking than fear and disgust

Palaeoclimate and pedosedimentary reconstruction of a middle to late Pleistocene loess-palaeosol sequence, Prymorske, SW Ukraine

A new investigation and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of the locss-palaeosol sequence at Prymorskc, SW s q Ukraine is presented using soil structures, grain size, mineral magnetics, organic carbon and calcium carbonate determinations. Six units of the established Ukraine Quaternary stratigraphical scheme have been identified and analysed above and including the Zavadivka (Holsteinian) marker horizon - Dnieper, Kaidaky, Tiasmyn, Pryluky and Udai. Precipitation and temperature are tentatively reconstructed from soil and sedimentary proxies calibrated by modern analogues. Increased temperatures and precipitation to today are inferred for the red-brown Zavadivka palaeosol. Overlying Zavadivka is the Dnieper loess containing a gley and two chernozcms above, possibly representing climatic variations of the Saalian Glaciation. The calcified chernozem Kaidaky is separated by a thin loess from the brown/ chestnut Pryluky palaeosol (Eemian) which has features indicating drier conditions to the present. Non-gleyed palaeosols exhibit an enhanced magnetic susceptibility (MS) signal relative to the less weathered loess and highlights the palaeoclimatic potential of the technique. The most well developed palaeosol from this study has the highest MS value (Zavadivka: 80-1 o·8 SJ units) but this relationship is not always found in the Black Sea region. Previous MS analyses at Prymorske (Nawrocki et al. 1999) report significantly higher values to those of this study. Consequently the MS curve at Prymorske cannot be used with confidence for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and inter-regional correlation without further investigation and modern analogue study

Scarcity and predictability of income over time: experimental games as a way to study consumption smoothing

Consumer research typically examines discrete financial decisions. These measures are uninformative about behavior over time, like consumption smoothing, the extent to which people spend consistently across periods of high and low income. We developed a multi-round game to study consumption smoothing and tested hypotheses about initial resource scarcity and the predictability of income. The game was played by museum visitors across a wide age range (6-80+, N = 2104), and by online participants (N = 1294) in a pre-registered partial replication. Participants spent their money in the game more smoothly over the multiple rounds when they had abundant rather than scarce initial resources, and this was particularly true when they received income on a predictable schedule. When income was unpredictable, initial scarcity did not hurt performance. We discuss implications for theorizing about the effects of scarcity