IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp5017.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unwillingness to Pay for Privacy: A Field Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Beresford, Alastair R.

    () (University of Cambridge)

  • Kübler, Dorothea

    () (WZB - Social Science Research Center Berlin)

  • Preibusch, Sören

    () (University of Cambridge)

Abstract

We measure willingness to pay for privacy in a field experiment. Participants were given the choice to buy a maximum of one DVD from one of two online stores. One store consistently required more sensitive personal data than the other, but otherwise the stores were identical. In one treatment, DVDs were one Euro cheaper at the store requesting more personal information, and almost all buyers chose the cheaper store. Surprisingly, in the second treatment when prices were identical, participants bought from both shops equally often.

Suggested Citation

  • Beresford, Alastair R. & Kübler, Dorothea & Preibusch, Sören, 2010. "Unwillingness to Pay for Privacy: A Field Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 5017, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ftp.iza.org/dp5017.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin Hermalin & Michael Katz, 2006. "Privacy, property rights and efficiency: The economics of privacy as secrecy," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 209-239, September.
    2. Janice Y. Tsai & Serge Egelman & Lorrie Cranor & Alessandro Acquisti, 2011. "The Effect of Online Privacy Information on Purchasing Behavior: An Experimental Study," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 254-268, June.
    3. Posner, Richard A, 1981. "The Economics of Privacy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 405-409, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    privacy; willingness to pay; field experiments;

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

    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:iza:izadps:dp5017. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Holger Hinte). General contact details of provider: http://www.iza.org .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.