نقش تلنگرها در حفاظت از منابع طبیعی: رویکرد اقتصاد رفتاری

نوع مقاله : مقالات پژوهشی

نویسندگان

• حشمت اله عسگری
• محدثه پورعلی مردان

گروه اقتصاد، دانشکده ادبیات و علوم انسانی، دانشگاه ایلام، ایلام، ایران

https://doi.org/10.22067/jead.2024.83838.1213

چکیده

حفاظت از منابع طبیعی همواره دغدغه دولت‌ها و مردم بوده است. تجارب دولت‌ها نشان‌دهنده آن است که بدون مشارکت مردم، برنامه حفاظت از منابع طبیعی توفیق چندانی حاصل نخواهد کرد. از این رو، هدف اصلی پژوهش حاضر، معرفی مجموعه تلنگرهای اقتصاد رفتاری برای همیاران طبیعت در جهت حفاظت از منابع طبیعی است. ابزار این بررسی، پرسشنامه و نمونه‌گیری در دسترس از 213 نفر به شکل دو گروه درمان و کنترل است. برای بررسی اثربخشی تلنگرها از مدل پروبیت ترتیبی و مدل حداقل مربعات معمولی استفاده شده است. بدین منظور، نوزده تلنگر به‌منظور جلب مشارکت مردم در حوزه­‌های مختلف طراحی شدند. نتایج حاصل از تخمین مدل‌ها نشان داد که 14 تلنگر اقتصاد رفتاری همچون اثر لنگر و مثال‌زدن، شخصی­‌سازی، اثر طعمه، سوگیری تأیید مرجعیت، اثر ارابه‌ای، سوگیری به حال و غیره، اثر معنی­داری بر موضوعات منتخب این پژوهش همچون مشارکت آسان برای اطفای حریق، میزان معرفی افراد در قالب همیار طبیعت، انتخاب وظایف، عضویت در انجمن‌ها، عضویت در انجمن خاص، بازیافت زباله و غیره، در جهت حفاظت از منابع طبیعی داشتند. تمامی تلنگرهای اثر بخش به غیر از تلنگرهای پیش‌فرض هنجاری و محدودیت زمان اثر مثبت و معنی‌داری بر گروه درمان داشتند. برای تلنگرهای پیش‌فرض هنجاری و محدودیت زمان اثر منفی و معنی­داری، به‌ترتیب، بر کاشت نهال و زمان ثبت درخواست همکاری یافت شد. این اثر منفی با توجه به ماهیت موضوعات، تأثیرگذاری تلنگرها را نمایان می‌سازد. نتایج پژوهش حاضر این پیام را دربردارد که هرکدام از این تلنگرها به‌عنوان یک ابزار سیاستی می‌توانند تأثیر مثبت و قابل توجهی بر جلب مشارکت مردم در جهت حفظ منابع طبیعی برجای بگذارند و به‌عنوان یک نقشه راه، اهداف جلب مشارکت مردم را در موضوعات مختلف جامعه عمل بپوشانند.

کلیدواژه‌ها

• اقتصاد رفتاری
• تلنگر
• پروبیت ترتیبی
• حداقل مربعات معمولی
• منابع طبیعی

موضوعات

• اقتصاد منابع طبیعی و محیط زیست

عنوان مقاله [English]

The Role of Nudges in the Conservation of Natural Resources: A Behavioral Economics Approach

نویسندگان [English]

• Heshmatulah Asgari
• Mohaddeseh Pouralimardan

Department of Economics, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Ilam University, Ilam, Iran

چکیده [English]

Introduction
Considering the current process of destruction of natural resources in the country and the problems faced by the present and future generations, the measures taken in the field of conservation and restoration and development of natural resources do not seem to be enough. Although, to solve these problems, the role of the government as a planner and supporter of natural resources projects is clear and important (Arayesh & Farajilah Hosseini, 2010). However, the projects designed to conserve natural resources are implemented based on people's participation. In general, people's participation in projects in the field of natural resources protection can take place in various fields. The most important of these issues have been considered in the behavioral examples of the Helpers of Nature project which can be including planting seedlings, people's participation in times of crisis such as fire, protection of forests, contributing to environmental protection associations, joining environmental associations, waste management in terms of separation and volume, joining the natural resources projects through the organization's systems, introducing people to the natural resources organization in the form of nature's helper, paying the green tax and etc (Natural resources & watershed management organization-I.R of IRAN, 2023). However it is the question as how to attract people's participation in the mentioned issues requires tools that can influence human behavior. Behavioral economics, as a new scientific field of economic sciences, can measure and analyze the impact of intentions, beliefs, and motivations on human behavior and decisions, and based on this, it can also provide policy tools (Asgari et al., 2021). For this reason, it can influence people's behavior to participate in the conservation of natural resources using behavioral economics approach. Therefore, to realize the goal of attracting people's participation, the current study considers to examine nudges and the effectiveness of nudges on people's behavior using behavioral economics approach
 
Materials and Methods
The sampling method of the research is convenience sampling. The number of samples is 213 people using the online questionnaire in two separate groups. This study is a quasi-experimental design and its type is a comparison between two groups. The number of the control group includes 108 people and the number of the treatment group includes 105 people. The control and treatment groups were independent. Each of the groups had completely common questions and response criteria. In this study, the control and treatment groups did not receive any training, but only the treatment group was given additional information about cognitive errors along with related questions. First, the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test is used to check and compare the ratings regarding supplementary information as well as the answers of people in the two groups. The ordered probit regression is used to analyze the relationship between ordinal or ranked dependent variables related to natural resource protection behavior and independent treatment (nudge) variables and other variables. For the relative dependent variables (the time of registration of cooperation request and the number of people introduced as a nature helper), the ordinary least square regression is used to analyze the effect of the treatment binary variable on the people's behavior in the field of natural resources conservation
 
Results and Discussion
This study results showed that out of 19 nudges, 14 nudges includes; Normative default, time limit, anchor and exemplify, carrot and stick, personalization, decoy effect, authority confirmation bias, bandwagon effect, present bias, automatic recommendation, halo effect and ownership effect (1) and (2) and (3) had a significant impact on these people's behavior, respectively, the number of seedlings, the time of registering a request for cooperation, participation in firefighting, waste production, the number of members introduced as a nature’s helper, choosing tasks, membership in associations, membership in a special association, recycling, people's action preferences for forest protection, the percentage of perceived success for projects, willingness to spend taxes to beautify one's neighborhood, willingness to spend taxes to protect forests in one's area, and applying zoning to protect forests. The direction of influence in all nudges (except for the normative default and time limit) on people's behavior has been positive and significant. The marginal effects also showed that all nudges had the positive effect (with ordinal or ranked dependent variable) on the selection of the target option(s) in the treatment group compared to the control group. The carrot and stick policy had no significant effect on the ordinal variable of waste production, but the effect of this nudge on dummy variable of waste production was significant, This means that this nudge has had a positive and significant effect on maintaining the existing situation (garbage collection every day of the week) and reducing the amount of garbage (choosing 20 kg of garbage and less per week). The normative default and the time limit had a negative and significant effect (respectively) on the number of seedlings and the registration time of cooperation requests for planting seedlings. These negative effects have also confirmed the positive effect of nudging on people's behavior. Although the normative default resulted in fewer seedlings being planted by individuals, this occurred because the default was set at a minimal level and individuals were significantly more inclined to follow the default. The nudge of the time limit also led to a reduction in the time to register cooperation requests by individuals, so that people tended to register their request faster.
 
Conclusion
According to the results of this research, to attract the people's participation in the conservation of natural resources, these following should be considered: defaults, low-cost anchors, clear examples, incentives and punishments, highlight individual performance through personalization, using existing privileges for more cooperation, confirming people's sovereignty, presenting reports during performance, immediate rewards, making SMS and telephone systems available to compensate for people's lack of action, considering time limits for registering people in programs and projects, providing success reports to join people in an action, applying people's ownership of the green tax to further encourage them to pay taxes, allocating each zone to an environmental association for forests protection.

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

• Behavioral economics
• Nudge
• Natural resources
• Ordered Probit model
• Ordinary least squares

©2024 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source.

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