Browsing by Author "Brick, Kerri"

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    Abalone conservation in the presence of drug use and corruption: Implications for its management in South Africa
    (International Journal of Sustainable Economy, 2015-05-28) Muchapondwa, Edwin; Brick, Kerri; Visser, Martine
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    Open Access
    Behavioural economic applications to climate change mitigation and adaptation: public good games and risk experiments
    (2014) Brick, Kerri; Visser, Martine
    This thesis contributes to the economics of climate change by incorporating insights from behavioural economics. As both mitigation and adaptation are components of any climate change strategy, the four papers presented here use laboratory and field experiments to examine different dimensions of individuals' mitigation and adaptive behaviour. The papers in Section 1 utilise framed public good games to focus on two different aspects of the public goods dilemma synonymous with climate change mitigation. In this context, the first paper 'What is fair? An experimental guide to climate negotiations' examines the degree to which the use of particular burden-sharing principles in multilateral climate change negotiations reflects self-interest. The multi-country public good game is conducted with a sample of individuals from the United States, European Union, China, India and South Africa. The results signal the use of the historical and future polluter-pays rules by American and Chinese participants to reflect self-interest. The potential for groups of heterogeneous individuals to meet a collective emission-reduction target through individual contributions is examined in the second paper: "Cooperation and Climate Change: Can Communication Facilitate the Provision of Public Goods in Heterogeneous Agents?" Heterogeneity is framed as differences in participants' marginal abatement costs. While communication promotes cooperation, even when heterogeneity is present, the non-binding nature of communication results in the two dominant contribution strategies of free-riding and perfect-cooperation. The papers in Section 2 examine the role of risk and uncertainty in individuals' adaptive strategies. The correlation between risk attitudes and individuals' flood adaptation strategies is examined in the third paper: "Risk Attitudes and Adaptation: Experimental Evidence from a Flood Prone Urban Informal Settlement in South Africa." Risk attitudes are elicited from a series of lottery tasks conducted across a sample of individuals living in a flood-prone urban informal settlement. The results indicate that individuals adopting more effective (and costly) adaptation strategies are more risk averse. The fourth paper "Risk Preferences, Technology Adoption and Insurance Uptake" uses lottery tasks and a framed insurance game to examine whether the provision of a framed index insurance product induces individuals to opt into riskier but potentially more profitable activities. Experiment participants are small-scale and subsistence urban food growers. The results indicate that risk-averse individuals are more likely to opt into traditional agriculture and are less likely to use modern farming inputs that require financing.
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    Contribution Norms in Heterogeneous Groups: A Climate Change Framing
    (Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 2015-05-28) van der Hoven, Zoe; Visser, Martine; Brick, Kerri
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    Economics of climate change: context and concepts related to mitigation
    (Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town., 2009) Winkler, Harald; Marquard, Andrew; Tyler, Emily; Visser, Martine; Brick, Kerri
    Climate change is increasingly seen as not only an environmental issue, but a deeply economic one. ‘Climate change presents a unique challenge for economics: it is the greatest and widest ranging market failure ever seen’ (Stern Review 2006). Markets are failing to put a price on the emissions of greenhouse gases, passing the costs on to society as a whole.
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    Fire prevention and risk aversion among informal urban dwellers in Cape Town
    (2015) Kanyinji, Rabson; Visser, Martine; Brick, Kerri
    This paper attempts to provide experimental evidence on fire prevention and risk aversion among urban informal settlers using lottery choice data with real monetary prizes. The paper estimates the risk attitudes of a sample of 174 individuals from an informal housing development in Cape Town. The empirical analysis is performed within the expected utility theory specification, assuming constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) defined over the lottery prize. We tests the hypothesis that risk averse individuals will take precautionary measures in as far as possible to mitigate the risk of fire to their household. We find that individual-level fire prevention measures that are within the means of the households to effect, such as making sure that matches, lighters and paraffin are kept out of reach of children, is correlated with risk aversion, but measures, such as building of homes at least 3-5 meters from the neighbours, does not seem to be within the choice set of low-income informal dwellers. Our results further indicate that subjects who engage in fire prevention/fire safety strategies that require the "most effort" (that are most effective and costly) are significantly more risk averse relative to subjects engaging in fire safety measures that need "least effort". Contrary to expectation, distance from the main road, informal electricity connection, and the use of paraffin for lighting, heating and cooking are not correlated with risk aversion, indicating that irrespective of the risk profiles of decision makers, low-income households are often forced to make choices that increase their exposure to fire hazards.
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    Green certificate trading
    (Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town., 2009) Brick, Kerri; Visser, Martine
    This paper proceeds as follows: Section 2 briefly outlines the policy instruments available for the promotion of renewable energy sources, while section 3 discusses green certificate trading in more detail, including the green certificate market in South Africa at present. Section 4 describes the international implementation of renewable energy support mechanisms. The lessons learnt from this experience in terms of design suggestions for the development of a South African TREC framework are detailed in Section 5. Also from international experience, Section 6 provides a comparison of a feed-in tariff scheme and a quota obligation system combined with tradable green certificates. Finally, the interaction between emission trading schemes and renewable energy promotion systems are outlined in Section 7.
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    Risk aversion: Experimental evidence from South African fishing communities
    (American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2015-05-28) Brick, Kerri; Visser, Martine; Burns, Justine