Growth survey of academic researchers
Creators: name: Berger, Sebastian
name: Suter, Manuel
name: Cologna, Viktoria
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences

description: Open Registration Here, we provide an open registration that includes some pre-registered hypotheses. The overall research interest underlying this project is the following. We want to survey academic researchers about the possibility of “green growth”, by which we mean continued economic growth while meeting sustainability targets (i.e., the non-breaking of crucial planetary boundaries). To do so, we will invite approximately 50’000 researchers. The sample has been created in the following way: We have identified all researchers on SCOPUS, who have published an article in a TOP 100 journal of the field environmental science (SCOPUS: “Environmental Sciences”) or economics (SCOPUS: “Economics, Econometrics, and Finance) in the past five years. “TOP JOURNAL” refers to the SCOPUS CITE SCORE for the year 2021. Pre-analysis: Tests of representativeness of survey respondents versus all invitees. For the 50,000 prospective participants, we obtained their h-factor, number of documents, cited by, co-author count, first and last publication, and gender (obtained via the gender-API algorithm). We will test differences between respondents and invited participants, to see if our sample is representative for the population. Data exclusion rules: We will always use the maximum data available. No data exclusions are planned and if survey respondents drop out before finishing the survey, we will fill the missing answers as missing data points, but keep the individual in the final sample. Main analyses A primary interest of the study is to descriptively show the results. Descriptive results are generally not pre-registered and no hypotheses are formed. However, there are some confirmatory statistical tests that we will run, in an effort to test pre-registered hypotheses. One set of hypotheses addresses the potentially different answering pattern between economists and other researchers, broadly construed. We will label as “economists” those researchers who self-identify as belonging to the SCOPUS disciplines “Business, Management and Accounting” or “Economics, Econometrics and Finance”. We will label as “non-economists” those researchers self-identify as belonging to other disciplines according to the SCOPUS classification. Hypothesis 1: The share of economists expecting that Green Growth is possible is higher than the share of other researchers. We test the differences in the answer to the question “All things considered, would you say that Green Growth is possible on a global level?” (Yes versus No). Exploratory question 1: We explore differences in the subjective certainty of their answer to the question above. Hypothesis 2: Hypothesis 2 will require qualitative methods. In open questions, we will ask survey respondents to explain their answer to the question above. The question are: “Please provide the main reasoning for your answer in your own words. Please write as much as you want: You may answer using bullet points.” And “What do you consider the strongest arguments for the possibility of Green Growth? List up to three arguments. Please try to use as few words as possible for each argument.” And “What do you consider the strongest arguments against the possibility of Green Growth? List up to three arguments. Please try to use as few words as possible for each argument.” In general, we hypothesize that economists (compared to non-economists) will refer to a stronger degree to the decoupling of emissions and economic output compared to other scientific fields. On the flipside, we hypothesize that non-economists will to a stronger degree refer to the (lack of) absolute decoupling of emissions and GDP, as well as on the material footprints associated with GDP growth. Wherever possible, analysts’ degree of freedom are explicitly stated and presented in the supplementary material, to provide convergent evidence for any result from multiple models (i.e., multi-verse analysis). Another set of hypotheses addresses differences in ideal growth rates, caused by intrinsic factors (i.e., being an economist versus not) or by extrinsic factors Hypothesis 3: Economists will suggest higher ideal growth compared to non-economists, in both high and low income countries. This pattern will be present in both experimental conditions. We do not analyze interactions. Hypothesis 4: When asked about growth rates versus growth factors (experimental manipulation), people will suggest higher ideal growth when asked about growth rates compared to growth factors. We do not pre-register interactions (e.g., different answering patterns between economists and non-economists). Hypothesis 5: Across all participants, the perceived ideal growth rate is higher for low income countries than high income countries (in both experimental conditions). Another set of hypotheses will address differences in answering patterns with regards to planetary boundaries. Hypothesis 6: Non-economist scholars list more planetary boundaries than economists when asked about the major environmental issues that are currently of interest. Hypothesis 7: Economists, more than non-economists, assume that growth is necessary to mitigate environmental problems. Another final hypothesis will address differences in regional exposure to environmental issues and acceptance of climate policy. Hypothesis 8: Scientists' perceptions of the magnitude of anticipated climate change and biodiversity loss in their own region influences the perceived need for regulatory action.