Story About How Empirical Support Grew for DIT in Metaeconomics

 

The story starts in the mid-1980s when a grant was attained from the US Soil and Water Conservation Service to focus on what level the cost share needed to be --- what the financial Incentive needed to be --- to nudge farmers to adopt soil and water conservation practices. Being well versed in Single Interest Theory (SIT) in the realm of Production Economics (only one set of isoquants to represent the self-interest only, with the focus on profit-only), the study was designed, and data collected accordingly.  Fortunately, the PhD Graduate Student, Leandro Rola, had a MS degree in Rural Sociology.  So, Rola proceeded to add some questions to the survey instrument suggested by Sociology, in the realm of what we later called the shared other-interest. 

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Reason for the research effort on the matter of conservation?  Well, conservation is essential to the long-term sustainability of the US food production system.  So, it became a thrust in US Agricultural and Farm Policy way back in the 1930s, at which time both technical support and cost sharing was introduced to nudge conservation behavior.  The first study conducted back in the mid-1980s set out to find economic evidence for the best level of the cost share.  That study used standard SIT, Single Interest Theory focused on self-interest only in Microeconomics to frame the question: The main finding was that SIT was totally inadequate to the task of explaining farmer choices about soil and water conservation.  What was found?   

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Using only the self-interest related variables suggested by SIT in mainstream Microeconomics gave us extremely weak explanatory power, like a R-squared of around 17-19 percent.  Adding the shared other-interest variables, which could not be justified using SIT to frame the research question, doubled the R-squared.  Something was clearly missing. After 3-4 decades of continued testing of the Null Hypotheses that shared other-interest had no influence on economic choice  --- resoundingly rejected over and over --- the R-squared often approached the 60-70 percent range.  Clearly DIT performs better than SIT in explaining all manner of conservation choices. It also performed better in explaining recycling.  So, the descriptors Empathy Conservation and Empathy Recycling were put into play. 

 

The detailed story of how DIT evolved is provided in Lynne et al. (2016), with updates in Lynne (2020).  For later developments, see Lynne and Czap (2023) and Lynne (2025). The list of publications below can also be approached directly: Read the papers, book chapters, and the Metaeconomics book for the details.

 

And, then, in more recent years, DIT is regularly found to perform better in explaining all manner of puzzles and paradoxes not directly related to conservation, like why do people tip when they will never go back to a  place; why  do people donate organs, like one of their kidneys, often to complete strangers; why do people vote, in that the payoff to the self-interest is negligible, with the cost often exceeding any measurable benefit; why do people run into  burning buildings or jump into frozen water body to save a stranger; and why does a soldier go into battle?   The Metaeconomics Blog and the  The Metaeconomic Order  Substack both show all manner of applications of DIT to contemporary issues.  DIT in Metaeconomics gives insights impossible to achieve using only SIT in Microeconomics.  Empathy-with, as in empathy-based ethics, plays a key role in all manner of economic choice.

 

See the following papers, book chapters, and the Metaeconomics book … all pointing to the empirical support for DIT, a tested theory. SIT has not been so tested, and, is built on shaky foundations as a kind of make-believe, cargo-cult science (Lynne 2025).  On contrast, DIT rests on a solid foundation of science & humanities.

 

Lynne, G.D. and L.R. Rola.  “Improving Attitude-Behavior Prediction Models With Economic Variables.”  J. Social Psychology.  128,1(Feb. 1988): 19-28.

Lynne, G.D., J.S. Shonkwiler, and L.R. Rola.  “Attitudes and Farmer Conservation Behavior.”  Amer. J. Agr. Econ. 70,1 (Feb. 1988): 12-19.

Lynne, Gary D. “Modifying the Neo-Classical Approach to Technology Adoption With Behavioral Science Models.” J. Agr. Applied Econ. 27,1 (July, 1995): 67-80.

Lynne, Gary D., C. Franklin Casey, Alan Hodges, and Mohammed Rahmani.  “Conservation Technology Adoption Decisions and the Theory of Planned Behavior.”  J. Economic Psychology 16 (1995): 581-598.

Lynne, G. D. and C. F. Casey.   “Regulatory Control of Technology Adoption by Individuals Pursuing Multiple Utility.”   J. Socio-Economics 27, 6 (1998):  701-719.

Casey, F. and G. D. Lynne. “Adoption of Water Conserving Technologies in Agriculture: The Role of Expected Profits and the Public Interest.” In F. Casey, A. Schmitz, S. Swinton and D. Zilberman (Editors).  Flexible Incentives for the Adoption of Environmental Technologies in Agriculture.   Norwell, MA:   Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999, 229-247.

Lynne, G. D.  “Divided Self Models of the Socioeconomic Person:  The Metaeconomics Approach.”   J. Socio-Economics  28, 3 (1999):  267-288.

Kalinowski, C.M., Lynne, G.D. and Johnson, B. “Recycling as a Reflection of Balanced Self-Interest: A Test of the Metaeconomics Approach.” Environment and Behavior 38,3 (May, 2006): 333-355.

Lynne, G.D. “On the Economics of Subselves: Toward a Metaeconomics.” Chp. 6 In Altman, Morris. Handbook of Contemporary Behavioral Economics.  New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2006, pp. 99-122.

Lynne, G.D. “Toward a Dual Motive Metaeconomic Theory.” Journal of Socioeconomics 35 (2006): 634-65.

Sautter, J., Ovchinnikova, N., Kruse, C., and Lynne, G. “Farmers’ Decisions Regarding Carbon Sequestration:  A Metaeconomic View.”   Society and Natural Resources: An International Journal 1521-0723,  24 (2)  (published online,  November, 2010;  print publication, January, 2011):  133-147.

Sheeder, R.J. and G.D. Lynne.  “Empathy Conditioned Conservation: ‘Walking-in-the-Shoes-of-Others’ as a Conservation Farmer.”  Land Economics 87, 3 (August 2011): 433-452.

Czap, N.V., Czap, H.J., Khatchaturyan, M., Lynne, G.D., and Burbach, M.E. “Walking in the Shoes of Others: Experimental Testing of Dual-Interest and Empathy in Environmental Choice.” Journal of Socio-Economics 41, 5 (October 2012): 642-653.

Hayes, W.M. and G.D. Lynne. “The Evolution of Ego 'n' Empathy: Progress in Forming the Centerpiece for Ecological Economic Theory.” In, Richardson, Robert B. (ed.), Building a Green Economy: Perspectives from Ecological Economics. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2013, pp. 101-118.

Czap, N.V., Czap, H.J., Khachaturyan, M., Burbach, M.E., and Lynne, G.D.  “Smiley or Frowney: The Effect of Emotions and Empathy Framing in a Downstream Water Pollution Game.”  International Journal of Economics and Finance 5, 3 (2013): 9-23 (also published on-line Feb. 22: see http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijef/issue/view/736 ).

Reimer, A., Thompson, A., Prokopy, L.S., Arbuckle, J.G., Genskow, K., Jackson-Smith, D.J., Lynne, G., McCann, L., Wright Morton, L., and Nowak, P.  “People, Place, Behavior, and Context:  A Research Agenda for Expanding Our Understanding of What Motivates Farmers’ Conservation Behaviors.”  Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 69, 2 (March/April, 2014): 57A-61A.

Czap, N.V., Czap, H.J., Burbach, M.E., and Lynne, G.D.  “Gender in Environmental Context:  An Effect of Property Rights, Fines, Empathy Nudging.”  International Journal of Economics and Finance 6, 7 (2014): 11-23.

Czap, N.V., Czap, H.J., Lynne, G.D., and Burbach, M.E.  “Walk in My Shoes:  Nudging for Empathy Conservation.”  Ecological Economics 118 (2015): 147-158.

Lynne, G.D., Czap, N.V., Czap, H.J., and Burback, M.E.  “A Theoretical Foundation for Empathy Conservation: Toward Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons.” Review of Behavioral Economics 3 (2016): 245 – 279.

Czap, H.J., Czap, N.V., Burbach, M.E., Lynne, G.D.  Farm Bill 2014: An experimental investigation of conservation compliance, Journal of Sustainable Development, 9, 3 (2016): 23-38.

Czap, N.V., Czap, H.J., Khachaturyan, M., Burbach, M.E. Comparing female and male response to financial incentives and empathy nudging in an environmental context. Review of Behavioral Economics  5 (2018): 61-84

Lynne, G.D.   Metaeconomics:  Tempering Excessive Greed.   Palgrave Advances in Behavioral Economics, John Tomer, ed.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020  ( https://tinyurl.com/yxagxtuf  . Book develops and applies Dual Interest Theory, bringing ethics --- represented in the shared other-interest --- back into the analytical system of economics, going back to the roots of economics. See Reviews by Lester, David.  “Review of Metaeconomics: Tempering Excessive Greed.” Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 91 (2021) and Frantz, Roger.  “Review of Metaeconomics: Tempering Excessive Greed, by Gary Lynne.” Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy 6,1 (2022): 51-52)

Lynne, G. D.  “Metaeconomic Sensibilities:  Toward the Human Firm on a Sustainable Blue Spaceship.”  Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, John Tomer Memorial Issue,   5 (2021): 55-64.

Lynne, Gary D. and Saarinen, Phyllis P.   “Metaeconomic Solutions to Dysfunctional Water Markets.”  In Altman, Morris (Ed.)  Constructing a More Scientific Economics: John Tomer’s Pluralistic and Humanistic Economics. Palgrave Advances in Behavioral Economics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, Chapter 15, 2022, pp. 309-329.     

Lynne, G. D. and Czap, N. V.  “Towards Dual Interest Theory in Metaeconomics.”  Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics (July 2023):1-19.

Lynne, Gary D. “Cargo-Cult Economics to Metaeconomics:  Toward a Humanomics with a Theory.”  Review of Behavioral Economics 12, 3 (May 2025):  257-289.