IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joepsy/v31y2010i6p895-907.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding the WTA-WTP gap: Attitudes, feelings, uncertainty and personality

Author

Listed:
  • Georgantzís, Nikolaos
  • Navarro-Martínez, Daniel

Abstract

We present an experiment designed to study the psychological basis for the willingness to accept (WTA)-willingness to pay (WTP) gap. Specifically, we conduct a standard WTA-WTP economic experiment to replicate the gap and include in it five additional instruments to try to follow the psychological processes producing it. These instruments are designed to measure five psychological constructs we consider especially relevant: (1) attitudes, (2) feelings, (3) familiarity with the target good, (4) risk attitudes, and (5) personality. Our results provide important new insights into the psychological foundations of the WTA-WTP disparity, which can be used to organize some major previous results and cast serious doubts on the claim that the gap might be just a consequence of inappropriate experimental practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Georgantzís, Nikolaos & Navarro-Martínez, Daniel, 2010. "Understanding the WTA-WTP gap: Attitudes, feelings, uncertainty and personality," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 895-907, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:31:y:2010:i:6:p:895-907
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-4870(10)00087-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    2. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    3. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    4. Loewenstein, George & Adler, Daniel, 1995. "A Bias in the Prediction of Tastes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(431), pages 929-937, July.
    5. Graham Loomes & Shepley Orr & Robert Sugden, 2009. "Taste uncertainty and status quo effects in consumer choice," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 113-135, October.
    6. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Graham Loomes & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 2003. "Do Anomalies Disappear in Repeated Markets?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(486), pages 153-166, March.
    8. Brown, Thomas C., 2005. "Loss aversion without the endowment effect, and other explanations for the WTA-WTP disparity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 367-379, July.
    9. Don L. Coursey & John L. Hovis & William D. Schulze, 1987. "The Disparity Between Willingness to Accept and Willingness to Pay Measures of Value," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(3), pages 679-690.
    10. Thaler, Richard, 1980. "Toward a positive theory of consumer choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 39-60, March.
    11. Binmore, Ken, 1999. "Why Experiment in Economics?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(453), pages 16-24, February.
    12. Shogren, Jason F. & Seung Y. Shin & Dermot J. Hayes & James B. Kliebenstein, 1994. "Resolving Differences in Willingness to Pay and Willingness to Accept," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 255-270, March.
    13. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Guillen, Pablo & del Paso, Rafael López, 2008. "Math skills and risk attitudes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 332-336, May.
    14. repec:cup:judgdm:v:2:y:2007:i::p:126-136 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Horowitz, John K. & McConnell, Kenneth E., 2002. "A Review of WTA/WTP Studies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 426-447, November.
    16. Starmer, Chris & Sugden, Robert, 1991. "Does the Random-Lottery Incentive System Elicit True Preferences? An Experimental Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 971-978, September.
    17. Lin, Chien-Huang & Chuang, Shih-Chieh & Kao, Danny T. & Kung, Chaang-Yung, 2006. "The role of emotions in the endowment effect," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 589-597, August.
    18. Charles R. Plott & Kathryn Zeiler, 2005. "The Willingness to Pay–Willingness to Accept Gap, the "Endowment Effect," Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 530-545, June.
    19. 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.
    20. Knez, Peter & Smith, Vernon L & Williams, Arlington W, 1985. "Individual Rationality, Market Rationality, and Value Estimation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 397-402, May.
    21. Robin Cubitt & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 1998. "On the Validity of the Random Lottery Incentive System," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(2), pages 115-131, September.
    22. Charles R. Plott & Kathryn Zeiler, 2007. "Exchange Asymmetries Incorrectly Interpreted as Evidence of Endowment Effect Theory and Prospect Theory?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1449-1466, September.
    23. Hoorens, Vera & Remmers, Nicole & van de Riet, Kamieke, 1999. "Time is an amazingly variable amount of money: Endowment and ownership effects in the subjective value of working time," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 383-405, August.
    24. Sabater-Grande, Gerardo & Georgantzis, Nikolaos, 2002. "Accounting for risk aversion in repeated prisoners' dilemma games: an experimental test," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 37-50, May.
    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. Sun, Chuanwang & Zhu, Xiting, 2014. "Evaluating the public perceptions of nuclear power in China: Evidence from a contingent valuation survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 397-405.
    2. Tunçel, Tuba & Hammitt, James K., 2014. "A new meta-analysis on the WTP/WTA disparity," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 175-187.
    3. Şule Güney & Ben R. Newell, 2019. "An exploratory investigation of the impact of evaluation context on ambiguity aversion," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 14(3), pages 335-348, May.
    4. Grebitus, Carola & Lusk, Jayson L. & Nayga, Rodolfo M., 2013. "Explaining differences in real and hypothetical experimental auctions and choice experiments with personality," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 11-26.
    5. García-Gallego, Aurora & Georgantzís, Nikolaos & Jaramillo-Gutiérrez, Ainhoa, 2012. "Gender differences in ultimatum games: Despite rather than due to risk attitudes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 42-49.
    6. Giuseppe Attanasi & Francesco Passarelli & Giulia Urso & Hana Cosic, 2019. "Privatization of a Tourism Event: Do Attendees Perceive it as a Risky Cultural Lottery?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-16, May.
    7. Dimitrios Xefteris & Iván Barreda‐Tarrazona & Aurora García‐Gallego & Nikolaos Georgantzís, 2023. "Catalog competition: Theory and experimental evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(1), pages 122-137, January.
    8. Iván Barreda-Tarrazona & Gerardo Sabater-Grande & Nikolaos Georgantzis, 2020. "Risk elicitation through the S-GG lottery panel task: Implementation note," Working Papers 2020/23, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    9. Gong, Cynthia M. & Lizieri, Colin & Bao, Helen X.H., 2019. "“Smarter information, smarter consumers”? Insights into the housing market," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 51-64.
    10. repec:cup:judgdm:v:14:y:2019:i:3:p:335-348 is not listed on IDEAS

    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. Roth, Gerrit, 2006. "Predicting the Gap between Willingness to Accept and Willingness to Pay," Munich Dissertations in Economics 4901, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    2. Andrea Isoni, 2011. "The willingness-to-accept/willingness-to-pay disparity in repeated markets: loss aversion or ‘bad-deal’ aversion?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(3), pages 409-430, September.
    3. Christina McGranaghan & Steven G. Otto, 2022. "Choice uncertainty and the endowment effect," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 83-104, August.
    4. Graham Loomes & Shepley Orr & Robert Sugden, 2009. "Taste uncertainty and status quo effects in consumer choice," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 113-135, October.
    5. Simon Gächter & Eric J. Johnson & Andreas Herrmann, 2022. "Individual-level loss aversion in riskless and risky choices," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 599-624, April.
    6. Holden, Stein T. & Bezu, Sosina, 2019. "Exchange asymmetries in productive assets: Tools, fertilizer or cash?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 269-278.
    7. Lunn,Pete & Lunn, Mary, 2014. "What Can I Get For It? The Relationship Between the Choice Equivalent, Willingness to Accept and Willingness to Pay," Papers WP479, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    8. Knetsch, Jack L. & Wong, Wei-Kang, 2009. "The endowment effect and the reference state: Evidence and manipulations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 407-413, August.
    9. Lindsay, Luke, 2019. "Adaptive loss aversion and market experience," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 43-61.
    10. Lunn, Pete & Lunn, Mary, 2014. "A Computational Theory of Willingness to Exchange," Papers WP477, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    11. Gächter, Simon & Johnson, Eric J. & Herrmann, Andreas, 2007. "Individual-Level Loss Aversion in Riskless and Risky Choices," IZA Discussion Papers 2961, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Pavlo Blavatskyy & Ganna Pogrebna, 2010. "Endowment effects? “Even” with half a million on the table!," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 68(1), pages 173-192, February.
    13. Andrea Isoni & Graham Loomes & Robert Sugden, 2011. "The Willingness to Pay—Willingness to Accept Gap, the "Endowment Effect," Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 991-1011, April.
    14. Masatlioglu, Yusufcan & Uler, Neslihan, 2013. "Understanding the reference effect," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 403-423.
    15. Mark J. Koetse & Roy Brouwer, 2016. "Reference Dependence Effects on WTA and WTP Value Functions and Their Disparity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(4), pages 723-745, December.
    16. Eduard Marinov, 2017. "The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 117-159.
    17. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2017. "Richard H. Thaler: Integrating Economics with Psychology," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2017-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    18. Kogler, Christoph & Kühberger, Anton & Gilhofer, Rainer, 2013. "Real and hypothetical endowment effects when exchanging lottery tickets: Is regret a better explanation than loss aversion?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 42-53.
    19. Braga, Jacinto & Humphrey, Steven J. & Starmer, Chris, 2009. "Market experience eliminates some anomalies--and creates new ones," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 401-416, May.
    20. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Köhler, Katrin, 2016. "Exchange asymmetries for bads? Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 231-241.

    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:eee:joepsy:v:31:y:2010:i:6:p:895-907. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joep .

    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.