UBS Center Newsletter July 2018

15 Being a nature lover, the core theme of my research is around sustainability. In one project, I address environmental aspects linked to food waste and investigate the psychological mechanism behind it. Another project combines economic and social aspects of sustainability, as we look into immoral labor markets. Psychological depreciation and food waste Approximately one-third of the food produced worldwide is lost or wasted every year. Food waste is harmful to the environment and costly from the households’ perspective (e.g. the estimated average annual loss for a typical American four-person household is approximately $1,600). While there are many causes of food waste, research shows that explicit freshness information – such as date labels – plays an important role. We run a lab-in-the-field experiment on the campus of the University of Zurich where we vary whether participants receive a seven-day-old or a one-day-old sandwich, and whether they are informed about its production date. First, we find that individuals do not experi- ence an objective taste difference between the old and the fresh sandwich. In addition, we test if disclosing the production date affects people’s experienced utility of consumption via the direct effect this information has on expectations. Surpris- ingly, even when knowing when the sandwich was produced, participants neither expect nor experi- ence a different utility of consumption. It seems therefore that the disclosure of long storage dura- tion does not induce any psychological depreciation of consumption utility. Immoral labor markets This research project covers a delicate topic – so let me start with a definition: Immorality is the violation of moral laws, norms, or standards. Cor- porate scandals regularly bring immoral work practices to light – manipulations of LIBOR rates and car emissions, misinformation by the tobacco and pharma industries, etc. Yet, there is also a labor market in these areas – but who is attracted to these jobs, and at what wage? We explore these questions with a combination of laboratory experi- ments, surveys, and the analysis of Swiss labor- market data. Amongst others, this allows us to determine the individuals’ aversion to acting im- morally – respectively, the individuals who are more inclined to violate moral norms. In our experiment, these individuals are more likely to be hired and obtain higher wages when a job consists of an immoral task, while there is no difference when the labor market is neutral. In addition, we find that participants who behave immorally in the labora- tory are more willing to work in industries that are perceived to be immoral. Finally, labor-market data further indicates that industries perceived as im- moral offer higher wages. What comes next? I plan to finish writing my doctoral thesis this summer. Food waste and immoral labor markets SCHOLARSHIPS Senior scholarship holder Fanny Brun. How does the produc- tion date of food affect the utility of consumption and food waste? Who is attracted to immoral la- bor markets, and at what wage? Fanny Brun