Leadership by example to empower wineries to take action to address climate change: Evidence from Japan

Last registered on August 02, 2022
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Leadership by example to empower wineries to take action to address climate change: Evidence from Japan
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0009751
Initial registration date
July 26, 2022

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
July 28, 2022, 2:56 PM EDT

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

Last updated
August 02, 2022, 7:56 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
Japan
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Hide-Fumi Yokoo
Affiliation
Hitotsubashi University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Takahiro Kubo
PI Affiliation
National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Hiroki Sasaki
PI Affiliation
Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2022-02-28
End date
2023-03-31
Keywords
Agriculture, Environment & Energy
Additional Keywords
Climate change mitigation, Wineries, Leadership by example
JEL code(s)
D2, Q1, Q5
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Climate change poses an urgent and existential threat to the wine sector. However, it is not easy for wineries and farmers to take action to reduce carbon emission comparing to adaptation. How can we encourage these actions? Farmers often seek information before take action, which influences their current risk perceptions of extreme weather condition or moral norms. Regarding the information, a positive approach focusing on empowering farmers to take action to address climate change is generally more successful at engaging people and minimizing defensive reactions. We therefore evaluate the impact of the “Leadership by Examples” flyer on the climate change-related information-gathering behavior of wineries in Japan. Leadership by example arises when individuals make sequential decisions, and the choice made by the first mover (the leader) influences the contributions of others (Jack and Recalde 2015; Gachter and Renner, 2018). We conduct a block randomized controlled trial for almost all wineries in Japan to evaluate the impact of the information provision on information seeking behavior: the control group receives normal climate related information and the treatment group receives the information with “Leadership by Examples” flyer. We further evaluate the impact on the wineries willingness to perform life cycle assessment (LCA). LCA allows wineries to understand their climate footprint, pinpoints opportunities for climate change mitigation, and tracks the impacts of emissions reductions over time. The heterogeneous treatment effects are also analyzed.

References:
Gächter, S., & Renner, E. (2018). Leaders as role models and ‘belief managers’ in social dilemmas. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 154, 321-334.
Jack, B. K., & Recalde, M. P. (2015). Leadership and the voluntary provision of public goods: Field evidence from Bolivia. Journal of Public Economics, 122, 80-93.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Yokoo, Hide-Fumi, Takahiro Kubo and Hiroki Sasaki. 2022. "Leadership by example to empower wineries to take action to address climate change: Evidence from Japan." AEA RCT Registry. August 02. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9751-1.2
Sponsors & Partners

Sponsors

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Our treatment is a flyer introducing a pioneering winery that engages in climate change mitigation. It is “Totto winery” in Tottori, Japan. One page of the flyer presents that Totto winery switched its electricity source to renewable energy and published the sustainability report. In addition, the flyer contains basic information regarding the winery. This treatment is based on the idea of “Leadership by example” as in Jack and Recalde (2015).

References:
Jack, B. K., & Recalde, M. P. (2015). Leadership and the voluntary provision of public goods: Field evidence from Bolivia. Journal of Public Economics, 122, 80-93.
Intervention Start Date
2022-08-05
Intervention End Date
2022-08-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our primary outcomes include: the number of registrations to the webinars, registration to the webinar 1 or 2, the number of participation in the webinars, participation to the webinar 1 or 2, application to be a subject of a life cycle assessment, and the number of days that a winery has been subscribing to the email newsletters from PRIMAFF since the experiment has begun.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
380 wineries are randomized into two groups. We randomize the treatment at the level of the winery. Randomization is implemented by stratification. We stratify our sample wineries based on three variables: (1) a dummy variable indicating the treatment by postal mail, (2) a dummy variable indicating the response to our survey in March 2022, and (3) the region of the winery (zip code).
See Pre-Analysis Plan for more detail.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
We will randomize at the winery level.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
0
Sample size: planned number of observations
380 wineries
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Control: 190 wineries
Treatment: 190 wineries
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
See Pre-Analysis Plan
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan
IRB Approval Date
2022-07-04
IRB Approval Number
2022FY-01
Analysis Plan

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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