In the U.S., the fifth largest “crop” is vegetation dedicated to environmental conservation. Over 22 million acres of perennial covers are planted on environmentally sensitive land enrolled in U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), one of the largest agricultural conservation programs in the world. About half of CRP lands are enrolled through a complex reverse auction called the General Signup. The communication of program options to participants could have an important behavioral impact. Psychologists have found that information presentation in complex decision environments can interact with the bounded rationality and cognitive biases of decision makers. We tested two changes in the status quo CRP decision environment using an incentivized, lab-in-the-field experiment with 701 prior General Signup participants. First, program participants typically make an active choice over which cover practice to plant and how much of a discount to offer, where the discount is a reduction in their annual program payment. Changing that default to an opt-out, high-scoring offer resulted in a 13 percentage point increase in selection of the best practice and a 48 percent increase in the average discount. In the actual CRP, that increase in discounting would reduce total program costs by about $30 million per signup. Second, shifting to real-time updating of offer scores modestly reduced the frequency with which participants revised their offers, suggesting a reduction in transaction costs. From a policy perspective, these results suggest that small changes in conservation auctions could both improve the quality of conservation practices and reduce program costs.

在美国，第五大“作物”是致力于环境保护的植被。超过 2200 万英亩的多年生植物被种植在环境敏感的土地上，这些土地已加入美国农业部的保护储备计划 (CRP)，该计划是世界上最大的农业保护计划之一。大约一半的 CRP 土地是通过复杂的反向拍卖（称为“一般注册”）注册的。向参与者传达计划选项可能会产生重要的行为影响。心理学家发现，复杂决策环境中的信息呈现会与决策者的有限理性和认知偏差相互作用。我们通过一项激励性的实验室现场实验，对 701 名之前的一般注册参与者进行了测试，测试了现状 CRP 决策环境中的两项变化。首先，计划参与者通常会主动选择要种植的保险范围以及提供多少折扣，其中折扣是年度计划付款的减少。将默认设置更改为选择退出、高分优惠后，最佳实践的选择增加了 13 个百分点，平均折扣增加了 48%。在实际的 CRP 中，折扣的增加将使每次注册的总计划成本减少约 3000 万美元。其次，转向实时更新报价分数略微降低了参与者修改报价的频率，这表明交易成本有所降低。从政策角度来看，这些结果表明，保护拍卖的微小变化既可以提高保护实践的质量，又可以降低计划成本。计划参与者通常会主动选择要种植的保险范围以及提供多少折扣，其中折扣是年度计划付款的减少。将默认设置更改为选择退出、高分优惠后，最佳实践的选择增加了 13 个百分点，平均折扣增加了 48%。在实际的 CRP 中，折扣的增加将使每次注册的总计划成本减少约 3000 万美元。其次，转向实时更新报价分数略微降低了参与者修改报价的频率，这表明交易成本有所降低。从政策角度来看，这些结果表明，保护拍卖的微小变化既可以提高保护实践的质量，又可以降低计划成本。计划参与者通常会主动选择要种植的保险范围以及提供多少折扣，其中折扣是年度计划付款的减少。将默认设置更改为选择退出、高分优惠后，最佳实践的选择增加了 13 个百分点，平均折扣增加了 48%。在实际的 CRP 中，折扣的增加将使每次注册的总计划成本减少约 3000 万美元。其次，转向实时更新报价分数略微降低了参与者修改报价的频率，这表明交易成本有所降低。从政策角度来看，这些结果表明，保护拍卖的微小变化既可以提高保护实践的质量，又可以降低计划成本。