Uncertain Choices in Environmental Contexts

Last registered on April 22, 2025
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Uncertain Choices in Environmental Contexts
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015791
Initial registration date
April 17, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 22, 2025, 12:10 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Sweden
Region
Europe

Primary Investigator

Name
Sara le Roux
Affiliation
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Chandra Krishnamurthy
PI Affiliation
SLU
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-04-25
End date
2025-09-30
Keywords
Behavior, Environment & Energy, Finance & Microfinance
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
While experiments related to the effects of ambiguity on many aspects of decision making are increasingly being conducted, there are only a handful of studies related to insurance and ambiguity, and none at all for forests, for Sweden or elsewhere. Helping fill this gap is the main goal of this project. More specifically, this project uses the most commonly accepted methodology today, behavioral experiments, to answer the following two questions: (i) how do individuals with some expertise in forestry respond to risk and ambiguity? And (ii) how are forest-related insurance decisions made under risk and under ambiguity? We are thus able to quantify the degree of risk and ambiguity aversion and to understand how different sets of risks affect insurance uptake, along with the degree of insurance chosen (full versus partial)
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Krishnamurthy, Chandra and Sara le Roux. 2025. "Uncertain Choices in Environmental Contexts." AEA RCT Registry. April 22. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15791-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2025-04-25
Intervention End Date
2025-09-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
There are two sets of primary outcomes:
- Magnitude of: Coefficient of risk aversion, ambiguity aversion, and rate of time preference
- Effect of attitudes towards risk and uncertainty on choice of catastrophic forest insurance
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The experiment is divided into the following two phases:
Phase 1: Here, each participant is asked to provide a few basic details about themselves (with no sensitive data being required).
Phase 2: This phase consists of two parts, A and B. Part A pertains to elicitation of the participants’ attitude to risk and ambiguity. This will be carried out by asking the participants to make decisions in various hypothetical situations with the aim to elicit -
1. their general risk attitude
2. their general attitude to uncertain situations
3. their preferences related to time (that delaying or speeding up potential rewards)
We propose using the matching probabilities method proposed by Baillon et al. (2021) to elicit the model-free ambiguity parameters.
In Part B, the participants’ preference related to insuring their forests against low-probability high-impact events (e.g. large fires, storms) will be elicited. This again will be split into three treatments (a base and two ambiguity treatments), each specifying a given level of risk involved and certain insurance choices.
We note that the three experimental treatments referred to above (base and two ambiguity settings) for insurance will be randomised, meaning that the "treatment effect" is the effect of the two ambiguity settings relative to the base (which is a control group).
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization of insurance option shown carried out by computer.
Randomization Unit
Randomization is at the individual level, with different individuals in the same session receiving one of three “treatments” randomly.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
0
Sample size: planned number of observations
300 participants
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
For our plan of 3 treatments, for a 95% significance level and power = 0.80, we expect a medium effect (32%), therefore the sample size for each treatment group would be around 100 subjects and 300 subjects in total.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Oxford Brookes University Ethics Panel
IRB Approval Date
2025-02-24
IRB Approval Number
UREC ref: L25363
IRB Name
The Swedish Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2025-03-04
IRB Approval Number
Dnr 2025-01054-01
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials