Predictive Markets: Ein vielversprechender Weg zur Verbesserung der Prognosequalität im Unternehmen?

Die möglichst präzise und vor allem zutreffende Vorhersage unsicherer zukünftiger Ereignisse ist eine permanente Herausforderung für Unternehmen. Prognosemärkte adressieren diese Aufgabe, indem sie relevante Informationen aufdecken, bewerten und aggregieren. Mit diesem Bericht leisten wir einen Beitrag zur Bewertung der Leistungsfähigkeit von Prognosemärkten und tragen zusammen, wo potentielle Schwierigkeiten liegen und inwiefern dafür bereits Lösungsansätze vorhanden sind. Es hat sich gezeigt, dass ein webbasiertes System mit einem virtuellen Aktienmarkt über den Preismechanismus effizient individuelle Urteile aggregieren kann und sich durch vergleichsweise niedrige Transaktionskosten und hohe Skalierbarkeit in Bezug auf die Anzahl möglicher Teilnehmer auszeichnet. Die operative Implementierung kann durch internes Marketing bereits vor dem Launch, durch die richtige Sprache, durch eine kontinuierliche Kontrolle des Anreizsystems und durch eine klare Unterstützung vom Topmanagement unterstützt werden. Erfahrungen der Wirtschaft zeigen die bisher noch schwierige Realisierung langfristiger Prognosen über Predictive Markets, da das hierfür optimale Anreizschema noch nicht ausreichend erforscht ist. Außerdem sind weitere empirische Untersuchungen notwendig, um bessere Aussagen über den Umgang mit spekulativen Blasen, über die ideale Anzahl von parallel handelbaren Aktien und über die Kalibrierung des Prognosehorizonts treffen zu können

Background risk and risk-taking – evidence from the field

Most decisions involving risk are not taken in isolation. In addition to the risk from that decision, other independent, so-called ‘background’ risks, are considered. Our research adds to the growing evidence that this background risk influences risk-taking. We report results from a repeated lab-in-the-field investment task with Senegalese fishers in the presence of background risk related to their fishing income and their health. Our measure of background risk is the monthly wind condition. Without controls, we find that fishers act on average intemperately. Adding controls, we find that the impact of background risk on risk-taking—measured as the investment in the investment task—depends on the boat size of the fishers. When dividing the sample according to wealth, we find temperate behavior for the relatively poorer group and intemperate behavior that depends on boat lengths for the relatively richer group. Our results show the interrelations between background risk and context factors

Essays in resource and development economics

Chapter 1: Does the Adverse Announcement Effect of Climate Policy Matter? A Dynamic General Equilibrium Analysis We quantify the welfare effect of a climate policy that is announced today, but implemented with a known time lag as political procedures impede immediate implementation. The policy is a carbon emissions tax whose time path is chosen optimally at the time when implemented. During the time span before implementation, the announcement induces a lower price of fossil fuel and thus higher emissions as compared to a no-intervention scenario. In principle, this adverse ‘announcement effect’ could more than outweigh in welfare terms the gain from the tax after implementation. We show this not to be just a theoretical curiosity. We quantify a ‘window of opportunity’ such that implementation before (after) its end is a welfare gain (loss) over the no-intervention scenario. The result is highly sensitive to assumptions on the resource stock which is afflicted with particular empirical uncertainties. Our central estimate is a window of opportunity of about 60 years. Hence, there is still time to act, but the window of opportunity may be smaller. Thus, the adverse announcement effect is a worrying phenomenon deserving political awareness. The model is a Ramsey model extended by an exhaustible carbon resource and linked to a stylized dynamic climate model adapted from Nordhaus (2008b). Chapter 2: When will Higher Interest Payments Lead to More Education? Based on observations from field studies in fishing communities in India, we include a fragmented credit market into a two-sector, two-period model with common pool externalities to establish conditions under which credit market distortions either increase or decrease education. We show that higher interest payments increase education if their negative effect on capital investment and therefore labor productivity in low-skilled production outweighs their positive effect on subjective discounting and therefore the present value of highskilled production. Positive common pool externalities from reduced capital investment in low-skilled production can counterbalance the impact of capital changes on low-skilled labor productivity and therefore on education. The overall outcome depends on the affected interest factor, the household’s initial wealth and the common pool externality. Chapter 3: Estimating the Insurance Premium in Interlinked Credit-Output Contracts On informal credit markets, one often observes a type of credit that does not base interest payments on the loan amount, but on income flows (interlinked credit-output contract). This can be understood as a risk sharing mechanism where interest payments include an insurance premium. This paper shows that the premium increases with the income volatility. Based on observations from small-scale fishing communities around Chilika lagoon, India, the paper also confirms the finding empirically. Furthermore, in contrast to pure credit contracts, interlinked contracts allow fishing boats as collateral around Chilika lagoon. This reduces their interest rate. It explains why interlinked interest rates turn out to be of similar size as micro finance interest rates even though the former include an insurance component

Professional identity and the gender gap in risk-taking: Evidence from a field experiment with scientists

The gender gap in risk-taking is often used to explain differences in labor market outcomes. Some studies, however, suggest that this gender gap does not extend to professional contexts. This paper examines potential drivers of the gender gap in risk-taking, comparing the professional context of academia to a private setting. We draw on identity economics, which posits that individuals form multiple identities that moderate behavior across contexts. In an online field experiment with 474 scientists we vary the salience of the professional or private identity. We find that the gender gap in risk-taking is mediated when the professional identity is salient. We identify the switching of identities by females as an explanation. Our results suggest that if the gender gap in risk-taking is driven by selection, the selection is not (only) along risk-aversion, but (also) along the ability to switch between identities and to adapt to prevailing norms. This provides new insights for the discussion on gender, risk-taking and labor market policies, and suggests an important role for mentoring programs

Chapter 8 Stakeholders' normative notions of sustainability

Chapter 8 = Many fisheries world-wide are not operating sustainably. Returning to sustainable levels is challenging as fisheries are embedded in complex marine social-ecological systems and bringing the system back to a path of sustainability will likely involve conflicts and tough choices. A first step towards a path of sustainability relates to understanding the (different) normative notions of sustainability held by different stakeholder groups. We use the (German) Western Baltic Sea as a case study to elicit these normative views. At a workshop with representatives of relevant stakeholder groups, we conducted a questionnaire-based survey. Questions were inspired by the stochastic-viability-conceptualization of strong ecological-economic sustainability under uncertainty. The survey focused on sustainability as a normative goal for fisheries management from a societal perspective. It returns quantitative results which can be directly utilized in fisheries management. We find considerable variation across as well as within stakeholder groups in their normative views on sustainability. Still, it seems to be consensus among all stakeholders that the different groups have legitimate claims to the Western Baltic Sea, providing common ground on how to 28 sustainably use the WBS, and a well-designed transdisciplinary approach with broad exchange between different stakeholders and science seems useful to steer the WBS into a sustainable future

Chapter 1 The multifaceted picture of transdisciplinarity in marine research

Chapter 1 = The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget is considered responsible for coining the term transdisciplinarity’ in the 1970s, defining it as a higher stage after the interdisciplinary relations. To date, transdisciplinarity research is a growing field in academia, but still there is no uniform definition. In this book chapter, we explore how the term ‘transdisciplinarity’ is used in marine research including different fields like quantitative ecology and modeling, marine social science or marine conservation. We used a quantitative full-text analysis of peer-reviewed journal publications from 1992 to 2021, ensuring to include most recent contributions to the analysis. A total of over 6000 publications could be identified, about 500 of these focusing on marine realm. We applied an agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis (program R) to consider relative frequencies of significant conceptual words within the transdisciplinary landscape. Multiple research clusters have been identified and further divided regarding the study background (e.g., meta-analysis, case study, theory)

To tip or not to tip: The Window of Tipping Point Analysis for social‐ecological systems

We introduce six steps to define a “Window of Tipping Point Analysis” which serves as a framework to increase the understanding of processes and tipping points in social-ecological systems. We apply the Window of Tipping Point Analysis to a mathematical model and two case studies (i.e., Baltic Sea and the Humboldt Current Upwelling system), focusing on three aspects. In “to tip or be tipped” we look at agency in preventing (or driving) tipping. In “to be tipped or not to be tipped” we discuss intertemporal developments and chosen time periods for delineating regime shifts. In “to tip or not to tip” we discuss the desirability of states and their relation to the elements included. We argue that agency in tipping-point management, the occurrence of tipping points, and desirable states depend on the window chosen for the analysis

Use Rights for Common Pool Resources and Economic Development

This paper explores the long–run development of an economy with a traditional sector based on common–pool resource-use, a modern, resource–independent sector with fixed entry costs, and an imperfect capital market. We show theoretically that introducing resource-use regulations increases incomes in the traditional sector and that this can trigger a development process with labor reallocation to the modern sector. Allowing trade of resource-use rights, or distributing resource-use rights unequally, broadens the scope for development

Green Tax Reform, Endogenous Innovation and the Growth Dividend

We study theoretically and numerically the effects of an environmental tax reform using endogenous growth theory. In the theoretical part, mobile labor between manufacturing and R&D activities, and elasticity of substitution between labor and energy in manufacturing lower than unity allow for a growth dividend, even if we consider preexisting tax distortions. The scope for innovation is reduced when we consider direct financial investment in the lab, or elastic labor supply. We then apply the core theoretical model to a real growing economy and find that a boost in economic growth following such a carbon policy is a possible outcome. Lump-sum redistribution performs best in terms of effciency measured by aggregate welfare, while in terms of equity among social segments its progressive character fails when we consider very high emissions reduction targets

The Insurance Premium in the Interest Rates of Interlinked Loans in a Small-Scale Fishery

Interest payments based on income flows are a common feature of informal loans. Such so-called `interlinked loans' can be seen as an insurance against very low disposable incomes, as interest payments are lowest when income turns out to be low. This paper examines whether interlinked loans indeed contain an insurance premium and how those premia are determined. A simple theoretical model predicts that interest rates of interlinked loans increase with income volatility when insurance premia exist. Based on data from a small-scale fishery in India, calculations show that on average, lenders receive 25% of the income, which corresponds to an average interest rate of 49% p.a.. A panel data analysis confirms theoretical predictions that interlinked loans contain an insurance component paid by the borrowers