One major consequence of ecological disruptions and climate change is to make our future more and more uncertain, and societies face the challenge of moving toward a greener and sustainable economy. This raises a number of scientific challenges: among others, it is important to appropriately define and assess environmental risks, to understand how individuals behave in such situations, and to analyze how innovative financing and investment strategies might help societies address environmental changes.
This research group tackles these challenges by relying on research expertise in environmental economics, experimental economics, econometrics and finance. In particular, our research combines theoretical and experimental methods, option value theory, optimization under uncertainty and laboratory experiments.
Research works are focused on two main priorities. The first one is related to the problem of risk modeling. The aim is to analyze mitigation, prevention and adaptation behaviors in risky environments in order to understand how to deal with major environmental risks. The second priority focuses on the potential of investment and financing strategies to address environmental challenges. Different issues are analyzed, such as the impact of firms’ corporate social and environmental responsibility strategies, or the price dynamics in environmental markets.
Faculty members
Ph.D Students & Post-docs
Staff
Why Do People Continue to Live Near Polluted Sites? Empirical Evidence from Southwestern Europe
à paraître
Environmental Modeling & AssessmentThe health and socioeconomic costs of exposure to soil pollution: evidence from three polluted mining and industrial sites in Europe
à paraîtreJournal of Public HealthCan digital technologies induce behavioral changes in transportation habits? Evidence based on User Experience with the SmartMoov Application
à paraîtreRevue d'économie industrielleWillingness of households to reduce flood risk in southern France
à paraîtreJournal of Flood Risk ManagementAgricultural households’ adaptation to weather shocks in SubSaharan Africa: What implications for land-use change and deforestation?
à paraîtreEnvironment and Development EconomicsQuels liens entre relation au lieu et concernement ? Une exploration interdisciplinaire vis-à- vis des risques fluviaux et côtiers en France métropolitaine
à paraîtreNatures Sciences SociétésThe effect of price magnitude on analysts' forecasts: evidence from the lab
à ParaîtreRevue EconomiqueImpact of the Brexit vote announcement on long-run market performance
à paraîtreBankers Markets & Investors : an academic & professional reviewAre retrospective rail punctuality indicators useful? Evidence from users perceptions
2021Transportation Research Part A: Policy and PracticePopulation preferences for inclusive COVID-19 policy responses
2021The Lancet Public-HealthStochastic petropolitics: The dynamics of institutions in resource-dependent economies
2021European Economic ReviewHicksian Traverse Revisited: Conditions for the Energy Transition
2020Structural Change and Economic DynamicsCommons as a risk-management tool : theoretical predictions and an experimental test
2020Revue d'Economie PolitiqueGeneral stopping behaviors of naive and non-committed sophisticated agents, with application to probability distortion
2020Mathematical FinancePaving the way to coastal adaptation pathways: An interdisciplinary approach based on territorial archetypes
2020Environmental Science and PolicyValue creation and value appropriation In innovative coopetition projects
2020M@n@gementPositionnement stratégique de la Chine en Méditerranée : le projet Belt and Road Initiative
2019Les Cahiers scientifiques du transportFirst Results on the French version of the ICECAP-A questionnaire
2019Journal de gestion et d'économie de la santéAcceptabilité sociale des mesures d’adaptation au changement climatique en zones côtières : une revue de dix enquêtes menées en France métropolitaine
2019VertigO : La Revue Électronique en Sciences de l'EnvironnementA dual-process memory account of how to make an evaluation from complex and complete information
2019Revue EconomiqueOptimal sharing rule for a household with a portfolio management problem
2019Mathematical Social SciencesEconomic valuation of the loss and damage from climate change: A review of some current issues
2019Journal International de Bioéthique et d’Ethique des SciencesThe effect of short selling and borrowing on market prices and traders’ behavior
2019Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control
- Funding : ORA-Plus framework by the French National Research Agency (ANR), the Netherlands Organizations for Scientific Research (NWO), German Research Foundation (DFG), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS )
- Duration : 2016 – 2019
- Contact : WILLINGER Marc
The project aims to analyze the effects of macroeconomic policies, both monetary and fiscal, regulations related to information disclosure, and introduction of financial instruments within analytical frameworks that are based on more realistic behavioral foundations.
We will conduct research both at the individual and collective levels by combining laboratory experiments, computational experiments, and mathematical modeling, while paying a close attention to how individual decisions are aggregated into collective outcomes how collective outcomes feedback into individual decisions.
- Funding : ANR (Agence National de la Recherche) ANR Flash Covid-19 and Région Occitanie
- Duration : 2020 – 2022
- Contact : WILLINGER Marc
The CONFINOBS project seeks at identifying the determinants of the propensity to adopt and follow the recommendations of prevention and containment with respect to the spread of Covid-19 virus. The basic premise is that this propensity is determined by individuals’ personal characteristics of the individual: their risk-preferences, impatience, self-control and social preferences (e.g., altruism, generosity, trust and cooperativeness). The main objective is to identify the effect of these behavioral dimensions on compliance with containment measures and adoption of barrier gestures. Their knowledge is an essential prerequisite for designing more effective non-coercive instruments, such as monetary and non-monetary incentives (nudges), to better target communication during and after the crisis, and to increase its impact on behavior.
The project combines several experimental tools which allow to precisely measure the different behavioral dimensions (e.g., risk aversion, impatience, altruism or trust) based on incentivized tasks. Some measures, including risk preferences, will be doubled by declarative measures and genotyping, in order to provide converging evidence of the robustness of the main determinants. We further implement a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to document individuals’ willingness to comply with the binding measures. We also test the effectiveness of a “nudge” that was designed to encourage individuals to comply. Our results will be used to determine the right levers of actions for effective communication towards target audiences, with a view to, for example, adopt the observance of barrier gestures.
- Funding : ANR-DFG
- Duration : 2020-2023
- Contact : QUEROU Nicolas
Renewable natural resources are under constant threat of overuse, especially if (i) of common pool nature, and (ii) mobile, as resource users have strategic incentives to extract more than the socially efficient amount. Two prominent and still unresolved cases in Europe are overfishing and overuse of groundwater resources. New, scientifically sound policy approaches are needed, as these resources face changing and increasing risks: On the one hand, climate change will alter volatility in the regeneration of the resource as well as potential tipping points in its dynamics of movement. On the other hand, patterns of resource use shape risks and thus lead to ‘endogenous risks’. Research on these issues so far focused on rational, risk-neutral actors – an assumption in sharp contrast to evidence from behavioral economics. CRaMoRes sets up a new theory and model, considering different types of individual behavior under risk, including risk aversion and state-dependent risk preferences. We study how changes in climate forcing and endogeneous risks affect the strategic incentives for resource (over-) use of mobile common pool resources. CRaMoRes analyzes and proposes new, adaptive policy approaches, including rights-based, market-based, and information-based management. To assess the distributional consequences of changing risks, we use recently developed criteria of social evaluation in risky situations. CRaMoRes will experimentally test the implications of different policy approaches in the lab. We quantify and test the newly conceived policy approaches for two case studies: the Baltic fishery and the Upper Rhine aquifer.
- Funding : ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche)
- Duration : 2020 – 2023
- Contact : COURTOIS Pierre et MAGDALOU Brice
The impacts of future climatic conditions on agriculture and marine fisheries are expected to be widespread, complex, geographically variable, and mostly unfavorable, particularly in tropical countries where human development and health are of serious concern. Here we hypothesize that coastal towns and villages close to marine protected areas (MPAs) can better alleviate poverty in the context of land desertification than their counterparts without any management action on nearby marine ecosystems. We propose to test the link between biodiversity protection and economic development over a long time period (up to 20 years) by combining the most up-to-date (i) spatially gridded socioeconomic information, (ii) satellite imagery analyses, (iii) artificial intelligence and (iv) in situ observations in developing countries of the Mozambique channel.
- Funding : French Research National Agency ANR-17-CE02-0011
- Duration : 2017-2019
- Contact : WILLINGER Marc
Humans have colonized diverse environments so that specific genes, providing adaptation to each environment, are highly likely to have locally evolved (such as adaptation to high-altitude hypoxia).
These genes provide adaptation to a local, or specific, environment through a permanent physiological change or, alternatively, a behavioural change. Numerous genes are known to influence behaviour in experimental settings, such as alleles at the dopamine receptor locus D4 (DRD4), which is associated with attitudes toward risk.
However, direct evidence of selection acting on such genes is, to date, lacking. Active volcanoes and their exposed populations represent unique assets in the study of the roots of such adaptation responses.
The aims of this project are thus to: 1) study risk-taking people behaviour across contrasting environments, both at-risk and (almost) without risk; 2) examine the possibility of a local adaptation to risky environments; and 3) identify all relevant selected genes involved in this local adaptation.
The at-risk environments considered are flanks and surrounding plains of hazardous, active volcanoes, on which stable rural groups have developed.