Open Access
The effect of flooding on mental health: lessons learned for building resilience
(American Geophysical Union, 2017) Foudi, Sébastien; Osés Eraso, Nuria; Galarraga, Ibon; Economía; Ekonomia
Risk management and climate adaptation literature focuses mainly on reducing the impacts of, exposure to, and vulnerability to extreme events such as floods and droughts. Posttraumatic stress disorder is one of the most important impacts related to these events, but also a relatively under-researched topic outside original psychopathological contexts. We conduct a survey to investigate the mental stress caused by floods. We focus on hydrological, individual, and collective drivers of posttraumatic stress. We assess stress with flood-specific health scores and the GHQ-12 General Health Questionnaire. Our findings show that the combination of water depth and flood velocity measured via a Hazard Class Index is an important stressor; and that mental health resilience can be significantly improved by providing the population with adequate information. More specifically, the paper shows that psychological distress can be reduced by (i) coordinating awareness of flood risks and flood protection and prevention behavior; (ii) developing the abil- ity to protect oneself from physical, material and intangible damage; (iii) designing simple insurance proce- dures and protocols for fast recovery; and (iv) learning from previous experiences.
Open Access
Monitoring the SDGs in Navarre region, Spain: external report
(Publications Office of the European Union, 2023) Osés Eraso, Nuria; Economía; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE
This report is based on the list of indicators developed within the framework of the REGIONS2030 pilot project for the regional monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report analyses the adequacy of this list of indicators for the Comunidad Foral de Navarra, a European region located in the north of Spain. Likewise, the report discusses the availability of data for Navarra, analyses the evolution of the different indicators in Navarre, assesses the trends and proposes some alternative and complementary indicators. The report ends with challenges and recommendations for the development of this list of indicators.
Open Access
Cambio climático, riesgo de inundación y medidas de adaptación: retos en la valoración de daños y evaluación de medidas
(Gobierno Vasco, 2020) Martínez Juárez, Pablo; Foudi, Sébastien; Galarraga, Ibon; Osés Eraso, Nuria; Cerdá, Emilio; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
Las inundaciones suponen un importante riesgo para el bienestar de las personas por el gran impacto que causan. Por ello, distintas instituciones han emprendido planes para la mejora de sistemas de alerta y prevención, mejoras que requieren información lo más precisa posible sobre los riesgos a los que se enfrenta la población y el entorno, los cuales se definen como la combinación de la probabilidad de darse un determinado suceso y el daño que potencialmente causaría. Este estudio tiene como fin avanzar en el establecimiento de metodologías que faciliten el análisis del riesgo, para lo cual se examinan varios de los estudios realizados en este contexto con el objetivo de extraer pautas metodológicas que puedan ser utilizadas en proyectos fluviales y áreas costeras.
Open Access
Information, experience, and willingness to mitigate mental health consequences from flooding through collective defence
(American Geophysical Union, 2022) Foudi, Sébastien; Osés Eraso, Nuria; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
Demand for reducing mental health impacts from flooding through collective flood defence is elicited using a contingent valuation method with a sequential hypothetical scenario, which accounts for human resilience and experience. A two-step model fits the survey data: it combines a binary sample selection rule to distinguish protesters and participants with a Tobit model to accommodate true zero responses among participants. Results show that non-symptoms-specific information on mental health risk may bias the willingness to pay downward. Risk-averse individuals who have taken self-insurance protection measures are willing to pay for additional protection through collective defence. Feelings, such as worries and anxiety related to flooding, drive the demand, which supports the risk-as-feelings hypothesis for mental health protection from flooding. Inexperience rather than experience of flooding is found to increase demand, which indicates that individual mental resilience to flooding may increase after an event as posited by the inoculation hypothesis.
Open Access
Incentives to give up resource extraction and avoid the tragedy of the commons
(2013) Benito Ostolaza, Juan Miguel; Osés Eraso, Nuria; Economía; Ekonomia
This paper develops a general model of common resource extraction where we introduce payments for environmental services to encourage resource users to give up extraction. The goal is to reach a balance between resource use and conservation. As the essence of conservation is dynamic, we use a dynamic model to study the implementation of the compensation scheme. A stable heterogeneous equilibrium can be reached where both extractors and non-extractors live together. We analyze how the success of the compensation depends on factors such as the elasticity of demand and the biological characteristics of the resource.
Open Access
Using visual stimuli to promote healthy snack choices among children
(Elsevier, 2021) Benito Ostolaza, Juan Miguel; Echavarri, Rebeca; García Prado, Ariadna; Osés Eraso, Nuria; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
Most interventions against obesity use information to persuade people to change their behavior, with moderate results. Because eating involves automatic routines, new approaches have emerged appealing to non-reflective cognitive processes. Through a randomized controlled trial, we evaluated the impact of visual stimuli (positive and negative) on children's snack-choices at school. Results showed that the negative stimulus had no effect, while the positive stimulus increased the probability among girls of choosing a healthy snack. We also found that children with excess weight had a larger baseline probability of choosing the healthy snack than those without. We conclude that happy emojis, used to nudge non-reflective processes, can steer children towards healthy choices.
Open Access
Negative externalities in cropping decisions: private versus common land
(2013) Benito Ostolaza, Juan Miguel; Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Osés Eraso, Nuria; Economía; Ekonomia
This paper analyzes to what extent the definition of property rights affects cropping decisions when these decisions generate negative externalities. To that end, we implement an experimental study where agents make cropping decisions in two different treatments: private and common land. The results show that there are no statistically significant differences between the two treatments in the contribution to the negative externality, thus revealing that the definition of property rights does not affect cropping decision in this context. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the implication of the agents in activities generating negative externalities tends to increase over time, thus amplifying its adverse consequences.
Open Access
Participation in and provision of public goods: does granularity matter?
(Springer, 2020) Arlegi Pérez, Ricardo; Benito Ostolaza, Juan Miguel; Osés Eraso, Nuria; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
We use public goods games to experimentally investigate the effect of granularity (i.e., the degree of divisibility of the space of feasible contribution options) on participation (whether individuals contribute or not to the public good) and public goods provision (total contribution to the public good). Our results show that granularity has a significant effect on participation, mainly when coarser granularity eliminates the possibility of small contributions. However, this change in participation does not lead to a significant change in the total provision of the public good. These results are aligned with other experimental field results obtained in the context of donations and fundraising.
Open Access
Apropiación de comunales. Un estudio experimental
(Gobierno de Navarra, Departamento de Economía y Hacienda, 2003) Osés Eraso, Nuria; Viladrich Grau, Montserrat; Economía; Ekonomia
El presente trabajo estudia la apropiación de recursos de propiedad común utilizando las técnicas de la economía experimental. Introducimos un diseño experimental lineal que permite estudiar el papel que la menor o mayor abundancia de recursos juega en las actitudes de apropiación de los usuarios del comunal. Observamos que la apropiación disminuye con la escasez.
Open Access
Do wealth levels affect the contribution to negative externalities?
(Elsevier, 2020) Benito Ostolaza, Juan Miguel; Ezcurra Orayen, Roberto; Osés Eraso, Nuria; Ekonomia; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Economía
This paper experimentally explores the link between poverty and decisions that lead environmental degradation. In the experiment, individuals with different wealth levels play a game that describes environmental degradation as a contribution to an activity that generates a negative externality. The experimental data show that wealth levels not related to the environment (exogenous poverty) play no significant role in environmental decisions. However, the variation in wealth as a consequence of the contribution to environmental degradation (endogenous poverty) affects the behavior of individuals, that enter a spiral of poverty and environmental degradation. These results suggest the existence of a poverty-environment trap.