A behavioural economic analysis of compliance and non-compliance with water-protection and food-safety rules in primary production: a survey- and experiment-based study

在过去的几十年里，公民和政策制定者越来越关注与农业食品系统相关的挑战，如食品质量和安全、消费者的自由和知情选择、动物福利和环境保护。受到食品生产的负面外部性以及大量违反食品法和欺诈行为的困扰，公民和决策者呼吁做出更多努力，以确定食品市场的失败，并减轻相应的食品风险和环境问题。关于初级生产者在其特定的经济和社会环境中违反（或不违反）规则的原因的应用行为学研究仍然很少。因此，在设计有效且具有成本效益的监管策略方面，知识差距仍然存在。在此背景下，拟议的研究项目旨在提高对初级生产中顺从和不顺从行为的理解。在这一努力中，我们使用来自经济学（狭义和广义理性选择）和心理学（特质理论和计划行为理论）领域的不同概念来指定二元结果模型。通过调查和实验方法（商业管理游戏）系统地为两个受保护的利益和背景产生必要的数据：(i)水保护立法和施用氮肥时与水的最小距离规则，以及（ii）食品安全立法和在水果/蔬菜生产中使用农药后的最短等待时间。我们对各种方法进行三角测量，并评估在两种决策环境中依从性和不依从性行为的发生率是否显着不同。我们进一步比较了两种情况下的服从组和不服从组。除了对行为的解释（积极分析）之外，该项目还旨在促进更好的监管策略（规范分析），从而防止违反规则的行为。拟议的研究项目是第一个系统地将经济和心理学概念联系起来，试图解释大文化生产/水保护和水果和蔬菜生产/食品安全两个主题领域的行为。它也是第一个通过调查和实验来系统地生成这些领域的原始数据的研究，这些调查和实验以企业管理游戏的形式进行，并以感兴趣的群体代表为实验对象。我们期望该项目不仅将提高对特定研究群体行为的理解，而且有助于改进监管影响分析的方法，其对条件预测的普遍兴趣。该项目将进一步确定新的研究需要，特别是关于各种概念方法和实验设计对管制影响分析的适用性。

Over the last decades, citizens and policy makers have become increasingly concerned about the challenges related to the agri-food system such as food quality and safety, the free and informed choice of consumers, animal welfare, and environmental protection. Troubled by the negative externalities of food production as well as a great number of food law offences and frauds, citizens and policy makers call for more efforts to identify the failures in food markets and mitigate the corresponding food risks and environmental problems. Applied behavioural studies of what makes primary producers break (or not break) rules in their specific economic and social contexts are as yet scarce. Hence, knowledge gaps persist regarding the design of effective and cost efficient regulatory strategies. Against this background, the proposed research project is aimed at improving the understanding of compliant and non-compliant behaviour in primary production. In this endeavour, we use different conceptions of man both from the realm of economics (narrow and broad rational choice) and psychology (trait theory and theory of planned behaviour) to specify binary outcome models. Necessary data are systematically generated through surveys and experimental approaches (business management games) for two protected interests and contexts: (i) water protection legislation and minimum distance-to-water rules when applying nitrogen fertilizer, and (ii) food safety legislation and minimum waiting periods after pesticide use in fruit/vegetable production. We triangulate the various approaches and assess whether the incidence of compliant and non-compliant behaviour is significantly different in the two decision contexts. We furthermore compare the complying and the non-complying group over both contexts. Going beyond the explanation of behaviour (positive analysis), the project is also aimed to contribute to better regulatory strategies (normative analysis) and thus the prevention of rule-breaking behaviour. The proposed research project is the first one to systematically link economic and psychological conceptions in the attempt to explain behaviour in the two subject areas production of grand cultures/water protection and fruit and vegetable production/food safety. It is also the first one to resort to a systematic generation of primary data in these fields via surveys and experiments that are carried out in the form of business management games with representatives of the group of interest as experimental subjects. We expect that the project will not only improve the understanding of the behaviour of the specific group of study but contribute to the methodological improvement of regulatory impact analysis with its general interest on conditional forecasting. The project will furthermore identify new research needs, especially with regard to the suitability of various conceptual approaches and experimental designs for regulatory impact analysis.