Private and Public Appeals in Promoting Impure Public Goods: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Farmers

Summary

This field experiment examined how different messaging frames influence farmers' adoption decisions for nitrogen stabilizers, an impure public good with both private and environmental benefits. Emphasising private benefits was most effective at increasing willingness to pay, followed by local public benefits, while global environmental benefits alone had negligible effect. Notably, combining private and public messaging reduced bids relative to private messaging alone, suggesting potential psychological crowding-out or message interference effects in farmer decision-making.

Regional applicability

The study's findings are likely transferable to United Kingdom farming contexts, where policy increasingly relies on voluntary uptake of technologies addressing soil nitrogen losses and water quality. However, UK farmers may respond differently given distinct regulatory environments, subsidy structures (post-CAP), and cultural attitudes to environmental versus private incentives. Further contextual testing would be warranted before applying these messaging recommendations to UK agri-environment schemes.

Key measures

Bid amounts in cost-share auctions; treatment effects of private appeal, public local appeal, public global appeal, and combined messaging on farmer bidding behaviour

Outcomes reported

The study measured farmers' willingness to pay (bid amounts) for nitrogen stabilizers under different messaging treatments emphasising private benefits, public local benefits, public global benefits, or combinations thereof. It assessed how framing affects the effectiveness of cost-share incentive programmes for soil health and environmental technologies.

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