IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/feb/framed/00809.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Valuing Non-Marketed Goods and Services Using a List Field Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • John List

Abstract

Contingent valuation is a widely used method for estimating the value of nonmarket commodities. Yet, a persistent issue is whether responses to Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) questions accurately reflect true values. Recent studies indicate that hypothetical bias is a significant factor that creates a gap between intentions and actions. I use a novel approach within non-market valuation - a List Experiment in the field - to test whether it can attenuate the hypothetical bias observed within CVM surveys. Using data from 400 subjects in a field experiment, I find initial promising results.

Suggested Citation

  • John List, 2025. "Valuing Non-Marketed Goods and Services Using a List Field Experiment," Framed Field Experiments 00809, The Field Experiments Website.
    • Handle: RePEc:feb:framed:00809
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00809.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard A. Hofler & John A. List, 2004. "Valuation on the Frontier: Calibrating Actual and Hypothetical Statements of Value," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(1), pages 213-221, February.
    2. James Murphy & P. Allen & Thomas Stevens & Darryl Weatherhead, 2005. "A Meta-analysis of Hypothetical Bias in Stated Preference Valuation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 30(3), pages 313-325, March.
    3. Elisabeth Coutts & Ben Jann, 2011. "Sensitive Questions in Online Surveys: Experimental Results for the Randomized Response Technique (RRT) and the Unmatched Count Technique (UCT)," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 40(1), pages 169-193, February.
    4. Richard T. Carson & Theodore Groves & John A. List, 2014. "Consequentiality: A Theoretical and Experimental Exploration of a Single Binary Choice," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 171-207.
    5. John A. List, 2002. "Preference Reversals of a Different Kind: The "More Is Less" Phenomenon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1636-1643, December.
    6. Blair, Graeme & Imai, Kosuke, 2012. "Statistical Analysis of List Experiments," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 47-77, January.
    7. John A. List, 2001. "Do Explicit Warnings Eliminate the Hypothetical Bias in Elicitation Procedures? Evidence from Field Auctions for Sportscards," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1498-1507, December.
    8. Imai, Kosuke, 2011. "Multivariate Regression Analysis for the Item Count Technique," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 106(494), pages 407-416.
    9. Laura O. Taylor & Ronald G. Cummings, 1999. "Unbiased Value Estimates for Environmental Goods: A Cheap Talk Design for the Contingent Valuation Method," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 649-665, June.
    10. 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.
    11. John List & Craig Gallet, 2001. "What Experimental Protocol Influence Disparities Between Actual and Hypothetical Stated Values?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 20(3), pages 241-254, November.
    12. Peter A. Diamond & Jerry A. Hausman, 1994. "Contingent Valuation: Is Some Number Better than No Number?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 45-64, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. Catherine L. Kling & Daniel J. Phaneuf & Jinhua Zhao, 2012. "From Exxon to BP: Has Some Number Become Better Than No Number?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(4), pages 3-26, Fall.
    2. John K. Horowitz & Kenneth E. McConnell & James J. Murphy, 2013. "Behavioral foundations of environmental economics and valuation," Chapters, in: John A. List & Michael K. Price (ed.), Handbook on Experimental Economics and the Environment, chapter 4, pages 115-156, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Chavez, Daniel E. & Palma, Marco A. & Nayga, Rodolfo M. & Mjelde, James W., 2020. "Product availability in discrete choice experiments with private goods," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    4. Nicolas Jacquemet & Alexander James & Stéphane Luchini & Jason Shogren, 2011. "Social Psychology and Environmental Economics: A New Look at ex ante Corrections of Biased Preference Evaluation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(3), pages 413-433, March.
    5. Chavez, Daniel E. & Palma, Marco A. & Nayga Jr., Rodolfo M., 2017. "When does real become consequential in non-hypothetical choice experiments?," 2018 Annual Meeting, February 2-6, 2018, Jacksonville, Florida 266327, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    6. Hensher, David A., 2010. "Hypothetical bias, choice experiments and willingness to pay," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(6), pages 735-752, July.
    7. Lopez-Becerra, E.I. & Alcon, F., 2021. "Social desirability bias in the environmental economic valuation: An inferred valuation approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    8. Murphy, James J. & Stevens, Thomas H., 2004. "Contingent Valuation, Hypothetical Bias, and Experimental Economics," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(2), pages 182-192, October.
    9. Daniel A. Brent & Lata Gangadharan & Anke Leroux & Paul A. Raschky, 2014. "Putting One's Money Where One's Mouth is: Increasing Saliency in the Field," Monash Economics Working Papers 43-14, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    10. Fifer, Simon & Rose, John M., 2016. "Can you ever be certain? Reducing hypothetical bias in stated choice experiments via respondent reported choice certaintyAuthor-Name: Beck, Matthew J," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 149-167.
    11. Brent, Daniel A. & Gangadharan, Lata & Leroux, Anke & Raschky, Paul, 2016. "Putting Your Money Where Your Month Is," 2016 Conference (60th), February 2-5, 2016, Canberra, Australia 235377, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    12. Stephane Bergeron & Maurice Doyon & Laurent Muller, 2019. "Strategic response: A key to understand how cheap talk works," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 67(1), pages 75-83, March.
    13. Loomis, John B., 2014. "2013 WAEA Keynote Address: Strategies for Overcoming Hypothetical Bias in Stated Preference Surveys," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 39(01), pages 1-13, April.
    14. Ladenburg, Jacob & Olsen, Søren Bøye, 2014. "Augmenting short Cheap Talk scripts with a repeated Opt-Out Reminder in Choice Experiment surveys," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 39-63.
    15. Haghani, Milad & Bliemer, Michiel C.J. & Rose, John M. & Oppewal, Harmen & Lancsar, Emily, 2021. "Hypothetical bias in stated choice experiments: Part II. Conceptualisation of external validity, sources and explanations of bias and effectiveness of mitigation methods," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    16. Giles Atkinson & Susana Mourato & Stefan Szymanski & Ece Ozdemiroglu, 2008. "Are We Willing to Pay Enough to `Back the Bid'?: Valuing the Intangible Impacts of London's Bid to Host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(2), pages 419-444, February.
    17. Svensson, Mikael, 2006. "The Value of a Statistical Life in Sweden Estimates from Two Studies using the "Certainty Approach" Calibration," Working Papers 2006:6, Örebro University, School of Business, revised 12 May 2009.
    18. Félix Muñoz-García & Tongzhe Li, 2018. "Explaining Hypothetical Bias Variations Using Income Elasticity of Demand," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 207-224, September.
    19. Robert J. Johnston & Kevin J. Boyle & Wiktor (Vic) Adamowicz & Jeff Bennett & Roy Brouwer & Trudy Ann Cameron & W. Michael Hanemann & Nick Hanley & Mandy Ryan & Riccardo Scarpa & Roger Tourangeau & Ch, 2017. "Contemporary Guidance for Stated Preference Studies," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 319-405.
    20. Frode Alfnes & Chengyan Yue & Helen H. Jensen, 2010. "Cognitive dissonance as a means of reducing hypothetical bias," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 37(2), pages 147-163, June.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:feb:framed:00809. 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: Franco Daniel Albino (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.fieldexperiments.com .

    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.