Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 10th Sept 2026, 07:07:39pm CEST (Norway)
External resources will be made available 30 min before a session starts. You may have to reload the page to access the resources.
|
Daily Overview |
| Session | |
|
Risk, uncertainty and ambiguity Location: Auditorium G Session Chair: Juliane Koch, Lund University | |
    | |
Risk Denial & Meritocracy 1: University of Cologne, Germany; 2: ECONtribute; 3: Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Good Motivating oneself requires optimism about the future, but large-scale crises—such as climate change, war, or civil unrest—threaten this outlook. We investigate whether individuals downplay or deny such risks to sustain belief in the rewards of hard work. We develop a theoretical model linking meritocracy beliefs to risk denial and provide causal empirical evidence supporting this relationship. Using survey data, we show that individuals who strongly believe in meritocracy are significantly more likely to downplay future risks. To establish causality, we employ the epidemiological approach, comparing second-generation immigrants who share the same environment but differ in inherited meritocracy beliefs. A one-standard-deviation increase in ancestral meritocracy beliefs significantly reduces belief in climate change and concerns about war. Our lab experiment is made to clearly pin down this novel mechanism: risk denial to sustain motivation. | |