David Johannes Wüpper

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Wüpper

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David Johannes

ORCID

0000-0002-1344-6023

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Publications 1 - 10 of 27

The (in)stability of farmer risk preferences
Finger, Robert; Wüpper, David Johannes; McCallum, Chloe (2023)
Journal of Agricultural Economics
We test and quantify the (in)stability of farmer risk preferences, accounting for both the instability across elicitation methods and instability over time. We use repeated measurements (N = 1530) with Swiss fruit and grapevine producers over 3 years, using different risk preference elicitation methods (domain-specific self-assessment and incentivised lotteries). We find that farmers' risk preferences change considerably when measured using different methods. For example, self-reported risk preference and findings from a Holt and Laury lottery correlate only weakly (correlation coefficients range from 0.06 to 0.23). Moreover, we also find that risk preferences vary considerably over time, that is, applying the same elicitation method to the same farmer in a different point in time results in different risk preference estimates. Our results show self-reported risk preferences are moderately correlated (correlation coefficients range from 0.42 to 0.55) from one year to another. Finally, we find experiencing crop damages due to climate extremes and pests is associated with farmers becoming more risk tolerant over time in specific domains.
A 'debt' based approach to land degradation as an indicator of global change
Wüpper, David Johannes; Borrelli, Pasquale; Panagos, Panos; et al. (2021)
Global Change Biology
We propose a way to synthesize different approaches to globally map land degradation by combining vegetation and soil indicators into a consistent framework for assessing land degradation as an environmental ‘debt’. our combined approach reveals a broader lens for land degradation through global change, in particular, identifying hot-spots for the different kinds of land degradation.
Six research priorities to support corporate due-diligence policies
Sellare, Jorge; Börner, Jan; Brugger, Fritz; et al. (2022)
Nature
Laws to stamp out deforestation, pollution and child labour in global supply chains might have unintended consequences. Researchers need to investigate these effects.
Does information change German consumers’ attitudes about genetically modified food?
Wüpper, David Johannes; Wree, Philipp; Ardali, Goezde (2019)
European Review of Agricultural Economics
We use a choice experiment to investigate attitude heterogeneity regarding genetically modified food and how it is affected by the provision of balanced information. For the analysis, we use a generalized multinomial and a latent class logit. The consumers who are more accepting of genetic modifications are younger, less educated, and less concerned about their nutrition. The average effect of our provided information is negligible. However, the initially less opposed become slightly more opposed. Our results thus do not support the view that a lack of information drives consumer attitudes. Instead, attitudes seem to mostly reflect fundamental preferences. We discuss implications for research and policy.
Does culture affect soil erosion? Empirical evidence from Europe
Wüpper, David Johannes (2020)
European Review of Agricultural Economics
I investigate whether cultural differences explain why some European regions are more effective in mitigating soil erosion than others. Specifically, I consider environmental preferences and beliefs as well as time preferences. For causal identification, I use a control function approach. The estimates suggest that a 1 standard deviation increase in pro-environmental culture increases erosion mitigation by 2–9 percentage points. This has important implications for research and policy making, which I discuss.
Data on farmers’ adoption of climate change mitigation measures, individual characteristics, risk attitudes and social influences in a region of Switzerland
Kreft, Cordelia Sophie; Huber, Robert; Wüpper, David Johannes; et al. (2020)
Data in Brief
We present survey data on the adoption of agricultural climate change mitigation measures collected among 105 farmers in a region in Switzerland in 2019. We surveyed measures farmers use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on the farm level. The list comprised 13 measures related to energy production and use, herd and manure management as well as crop production. Additionally, data was collected with regard to farmers’ individual concerns and perceptions of climate change, attitudes and goals, self-efficacy and locus of control, income satisfaction and social influences. Moreover, risk preferences as well as loss aversion and probability weighting were elicited using a multiple price list. The survey data was matched with cantonal farm census data, containing information on farm size, farm type and age of the farmers. Previous article in issue
Land use and climate change impacts on global soil erosion by water (2015-2070)
Borrelli, Pasquale; Robinson, David A.; Panagos, Panos; et al. (2020)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Soil erosion is a major global soil degradation threat to land, freshwater, and oceans. Wind and water are the major drivers, with water erosion over land being the focus of this work; excluding gullying and river bank erosion. Improving knowledge of the probable future rates of soil erosion, accelerated by human activity, is important both for policy makers engaged in land use decision-making and for earth-system modelers seeking to reduce uncertainty on global predictions. Here we predict future rates of erosion by modeling change in potential global soil erosion by water using three alternative (2.6, 4.5, and 8.5) Shared Socioeconomic Pathway and Representative Concentration Pathway (SSP-RCP) scenarios. Global predictions rely on a high spatial resolution Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE)-based semiempirical modeling approach (GloSEM). The baseline model (2015) predicts global potential soil erosion rates of 43+9.2−7 Pg yr−1, with current conservation agriculture (CA) practices estimated to reduce this by ∼5%. Our future scenarios suggest that socioeconomic developments impacting land use will either decrease (SSP1-RCP2.6–10%) or increase (SSP2-RCP4.5 +2%, SSP5-RCP8.5 +10%) water erosion by 2070. Climate projections, for all global dynamics scenarios, indicate a trend, moving toward a more vigorous hydrological cycle, which could increase global water erosion (+30 to +66%). Accepting some degrees of uncertainty, our findings provide insights into how possible future socioeconomic development will affect soil erosion by water using a globally consistent approach. This preliminary evidence seeks to inform efforts such as those of the United Nations to assess global soil erosion and inform decision makers developing national strategies for soil conservation.
Agricultural systems and biodiversity: evidence from European borders and bird populations
Engist, Dennis; Finger, Robert; Knaus, Peter; et al. (2023)
Ecological Economics
Countries' agricultural systems have an important impact on biodiversity, for example bird populations. Here, we estimate such impacts by exploiting a natural experiment in the middle of Europe, where there is a naturally homogenous area that is divided into three countries: Switzerland, Germany, and France. These countries have markedly different agricultural systems and policies. Using a methodologically unified and unusually rich bird dataset available across these borders, both for the 2010s and 1990s, we analyze (a) whether there is a clear pattern that bird diversity systematically changes when crossing these borders and (b) whether this has changed over time. To assess bird populations, we focus on Shannon diversity, species richness and number of territories, as well as the individual effect on 29 common bird species. We find that Switzerland has systematically smaller and less diverse bird populations compared to Germany and France, driven entirely by agricultural differences. At the same time, we find that the difference between the countries was considerably more pronounced in the 1990s than in the 2010s. Yet, to reach the bird friendliness of Switzerland's neighboring countries, additional policy effort seems required, for example in the form of targeted agri-environmental payments.
National leverage points to reduce global pesticide pollution
Wüpper, David Johannes; Tang, Fiona H.M.; Finger, Robert (2023)
Global Environmental Change
There is an urgent need to reduce the environmental risk of pesticide pollution worldwide. We here explore national leverage points, using a novel dataset of 21.4 million georeferenced grid cells and a spatial regression discontinuity design. Our analysis lets us separate how much cross-country differences in the risk of pesticide pollution are caused by differences in countries’ agricultural systems and policies and how much is explained by other factors, such as environmental differences between the countries for example (e.g. pest pressures). We estimate that a third of the global cross-country differences in the pesticide pollution risk are caused by differences in countries’ agricultural systems and policies. The main explanations, and thus leverage points for policies, are differences in countries’ pesticide regulations, their share of organic farming, and type of crops that are grown. We find a trade-off between pesticide pollution risk and soil erosion only in the Americas and in Asia, but not elsewhere, and we do not find a trade-off between pesticide pollution risk and crop yield gaps.
Behavioral agricultural economics
Wüpper, David Johannes; Bukchin‐Peles, Shira; Just, David; et al. (2023)
Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy
Agricultural and other fields of economics have always co-evolved and benefitted from each other's insights. Over time, a general convergence of all social sciences began, and various fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science started to overlap with general and agricultural economics. Within economics, it was especially the rise of behavioral economics, that has steered the field toward the other social sciences. It departs from the assumption of perfectly rational expected utility maximizers and allows for greater diversity in decision-makers' objectives and constraints. Agricultural economics has been early to recognize the need to make economic choice models more realistic. This can be explained by the particularities of agricultural economics and agriculture. Agricultural economists are tasked with solving specific, practical problems, and thus behavioral deviations from model predictions have always been salient and relevant to policy recommendations. Then, farmers—and to some extent also consumers—make choices in particularly complex and uncertain environments and must use all strategic tools at their disposal to deal with their “bounded rationality”. These include the reliance on culture and other heuristics. Agricultural economics continues to synergize economic theory and practice with insights from other disciplines and real-world experiences and is an important driver towards further unification of all social sciences.

Publications 1 - 10 of 27

David Johannes Wüpper

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