IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/arerjl/90836.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating Hypothetical Bias in Economically Emergent Africa: A Generic Public Good Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Caplan, Arthur J.
  • Aadland, David
  • Macharia, Anthony

Abstract

This paper reports results from a contingent valuation based public good experiment conducted in the African nation of Botswana. In a sample of university students, we find evidence that stated willingness to contribute to a public good in a hypothetical setting is higher than actual contribution levels. However, results from regression analysis suggest that this is true only in the second round of the experiment, when participants making actual contributions have learned to significantly lower their contribution levels. As globalization expands markets, and economies such as Botswana’s continue to modernize, there is a growing need to understand how hypothetical bias will influence the valuation of public goods.

Suggested Citation

  • Caplan, Arthur J. & Aadland, David & Macharia, Anthony, 2010. "Estimating Hypothetical Bias in Economically Emergent Africa: A Generic Public Good Experiment," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 39(2), pages 1-15, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:arerjl:90836
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.90836
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/90836/files/caplan%20-%20current.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.90836?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John A. List, 2003. "Does Market Experience Eliminate Market Anomalies?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 41-71.
    2. Rondeau, Daniel & D. Schulze, William & Poe, Gregory L., 1999. "Voluntary revelation of the demand for public goods using a provision point mechanism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 455-470, June.
    3. John A. List, 2006. "The Behavioralist Meets the Market: Measuring Social Preferences and Reputation Effects in Actual Transactions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 1-37, February.
    4. Mariah D. Ehmke & Jayson L. Lusk & John A. List, 2008. "Is Hypothetical Bias a Universal Phenomenon? A Multinational Investigation," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 84(3), pages 489-500.
    5. Bengt Kristrom, 1990. "A Non-Parametric Approach to the Estimation of Welfare Measures in Discrete Response Valuation Studies," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 66(2), pages 135-139.
    6. World Bank, 2000. "Botswana: An Example of Prudent Economic Policy and Growth," World Bank Publications - Reports 9840, The World Bank Group.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marchegiani, Lucia & Reggiani, Tommaso G. & Rizzolli, Matteo, 2011. "How Unjust! An Experimental Investigation of Supervisors' Evaluation Errors and Agents' Incentives," IZA Discussion Papers 6254, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Lucia Marchegiani & Tommaso Reggiani & Matteo Rizzolli, 2013. "Severity vs. Leniency Bias in Performance Appraisal: Experimental evidence," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS01, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    3. Messer, Kent D. & Murphy, James J., 2010. "FOREWORD: Special Issue on Experimental Methods in Environmental, Natural Resource, and Agricultural Economics," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 39(2), pages 1-4, April.
    4. Dominique Ami & Frédéric Aprahamian & Olivier Chanel & Stéphane Luchini, 2011. "A Test of Cheap Talk in Different Hypothetical Contexts: The Case of Air Pollution," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 50(1), pages 111-130, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till, 2016. "Are groups 'less behavioral'? The case of anchoring," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 188 [rev.], University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    2. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    3. John A. List, 2014. "Using Field Experiments to Change the Template of How We Teach Economics," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(2), pages 81-89, June.
    4. Jonathan D. Ketcham & Claudio Lucarelli & Eugenio J. Miravete & M. Christopher Roebuck, 2012. "Sinking, Swimming, or Learning to Swim in Medicare Part D," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2639-2673, October.
    5. Hallsworth, Michael & List, John A. & Metcalfe, Robert D. & Vlaev, Ivo, 2017. "The behavioralist as tax collector: Using natural field experiments to enhance tax compliance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 14-31.
    6. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John List, 2016. "Field Experiments in Markets," Artefactual Field Experiments j0002, The Field Experiments Website.
    7. Daniel McFadden, 2009. "The human side of mechanism design: a tribute to Leo Hurwicz and Jean-Jacque Laffont," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 13(1), pages 77-100, April.
    8. Mitja Kovač & Ann-Sophie Vandenberghe, 2015. "Regulation of Automatic Renewal Clauses: A Behavioural Law and Economics Approach," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 287-313, September.
    9. Jesper Akesson & Robert Hahn & Robert Metcalfe & Manuel Monti-Nussbaum, 2025. "The Impact of Fake Reviews on Demand and Welfare," Framed Field Experiments 00821, The Field Experiments Website.
    10. Yan Chen & Peter Cramton & John A. List & Axel Ockenfels, 2021. "Market Design, Human Behavior, and Management," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5317-5348, September.
    11. Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till, 2014. "Are groups 'less behavioral'? The case of anchoring," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 188, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    12. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John List, 2013. "On the Generalizability of Experimental Results in Economics: With A Response To Camerer," Artefactual Field Experiments j0001, The Field Experiments Website.
    13. Brian Albrecht & Omar Al-Ubaydli & Peter Boettke, 2022. "Testing the Hayek hypothesis: Recent theoretical and experimental evidence," Artefactual Field Experiments 00759, The Field Experiments Website.
    14. Gesche, Tobias, 2018. "Reference Price Shifts and Customer Antagonism: Evidence from Reviews for Online Auctions," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181650, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Jonathan H.W. Tan & Zhao Zichen & Daniel John Zizzo, 2023. "Scientific Inference from Field and Laboratory Economic Experiments: Empirical Evidence," Discussion Papers Series 663, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    16. Lukas Meub & Till Proeger, 2018. "Are groups ‘less behavioral’? The case of anchoring," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 85(2), pages 117-150, August.
    17. Lusk, Jayson L. & Norwood, F. Bailey, 2009. "Bridging the gap between laboratory experiments and naturally occurring markets: An inferred valuation method," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 236-250, September.
    18. Omar Al-Ubaydli & John List, 2012. "On the Generalizability of Experimental Results in Economics," Artefactual Field Experiments 00467, The Field Experiments Website.
    19. Michael Faure & Hanneke Luth, 2011. "Behavioural Economics in Unfair Contract Terms," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 337-358, September.
    20. List John A., 2007. "Field Experiments: A Bridge between Lab and Naturally Occurring Data," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-47, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental Economics and Policy;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:arerjl:90836. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nareaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.