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From simple to complex: A revealed preference test of discrete choice experiment designs

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Abstract

Researchers employing discrete choice experiments to value publicly provided goods face several experimental design decisions. Fundamental amongst them are whether to ask participants one or many choice questions to elicit valuations, and how many choice options to include in each. To provide guidance for researchers tackling these decisions, and policy makers charged with interpreting welfare estimates based on these decisions, we conducted a financially incentivized online field experiment to provide a ground truth comparison of three leading elicitation approaches. A single binary choice question and a sequence of binary choice questions yield equal willingness-to-pay estimates. A sequence of trinary choices results in lower demand estimates. The latter approach, while dominant in the stated preference literature, encourages serial status quo choices due to increased task complexity, and is prone to framing effects in that the value for one good depends on the other good included in the choice set. These behavioral effects more than offset the theoretical efficiency advantage of this elicitation approach.

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  • Christian A. Vossler & Ewa Zawojska, 2025. "From simple to complex: A revealed preference test of discrete choice experiment designs," Working Papers 2025-03, University of Tennessee, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ten:wpaper:2025-03
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    File URL: https://web.utk.edu/~jhollad3/RePEc/2025-03.pdf
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    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects

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