Too Complex to Choose? The Role of Heuristics in Shaping Farmers' Willingness to Pay for Income Stabilization Tool in Italy

ABSTRACT European agriculture is increasingly exposed to economic instability driven by extreme weather events, market volatility, and geopolitical tensions. To manage these growing risks, farmers are encouraged to adopt innovative risk management strategies such as the Income Stabilization Tool (IST), which offers protection against severe income fluctuations. However, under uncertainty, decision‐making becomes challenging, often leading farmers to rely on simplified decision rules, the so‐called heuristics . This study explores how two shock‐experience heuristics affect farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) to join a IST fund, before and after learning the actual participation cost (external treatment). Through a framed‐field experiment with 150 Italian apple growers, we tested the effect of individual past (personal shock experience) and general past (shocks in their social network). Results show that, before learning the actual participation cost, farmers rely on heuristics to assess risk, with individual past yielding the highest WTP (€ 421.11/ha). Once the actual price is revealed, heuristics no longer influence decisions, and WTP converges across all groups to match the control (€ 268.08/ha).