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An experimental investigation of the disparity between WTA and WTP for lotteries

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  • Schmidt, Ulrich
  • Traub, Stefan

Abstract

In this paper we experimentally investigate the disparity between willingness-to-accept (WTA) and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for risky lotteries. The direction of the income effect is reversed by endowing subjects with the highest price of a lottery when asking the WTP question. Our results show that the income effect is too small to be the only source of the disparity. Since the disparity concentrates on a subsample of subjects, parametric and nonparametric tests of the WTA-WTP ratio may lead to contradictory results. The disparity is significantly reduced when background risk is introduced. That is, putting subjects always into a risky position could improve the contingent valuation method, which is often concerned with the assessment of risky situations such as health risks, automobile safety, etc.

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Paper provided by Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) in its series Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy with number 28786.

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Date of creation: 2009
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Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkie:28786
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Keywords: WTA-WTP disparity; lotteries; background risk; contingent valuation;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
  • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

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Cited by:

  1. Hey, John Denis & Morone, Andrea & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2007. "Noise and bias in eliciting preferences," Kiel Working Papers 1386, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
  2. Kontek, Krzysztof, 2010. "Classifying Behaviors in Risky Choices," MPRA Paper 23845, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  3. Tibor Neugebauer, 2010. "Moral Impossibility in the Petersburg Paradox : A Literature Survey and Experimental Evidence," LSF Research Working Paper Series 10-14, Luxembourg School of Finance, University of Luxembourg.
  4. Kontek, Krzysztof, 2010. "Mean, Median or Mode? A Striking Conclusion From Lottery Experiments," MPRA Paper 21758, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  5. Isabel Marcin & Andreas Nicklisch, 2014. "Testing the Endowment Effect for Default Rules," Working Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2014_01, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
  6. Raphaël Giraud, 2010. "On the interpretation of the WTP/WTA gap as imprecise utility: an axiomatic analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 30(1), pages 692-701.
  7. Raphaël Giraud, 2012. "Money matters: an axiomatic theory of the endowment effect," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 50(2), pages 303-339, June.
  8. Kontek, Krzysztof, 2010. "Estimation of Peaked Densities Over the Interval [0,1] Using Two-Sided Power Distribution: Application to Lottery Experiments," MPRA Paper 22378, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  9. Shosh Shahrabani & Uri Benzion & Tal Shavit, 2008. "WTP and WTA in competitive and non-competitive environments," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 3, pages 153-161, February.
  10. 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.
  11. Kontek, Krzysztof, 2010. "Density Based Regression for Inhomogeneous Data: Application to Lottery Experiments," MPRA Paper 22268, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  12. Chen Li & Zhihua Li & Peter Wakker, 2014. "If nudge cannot be applied: a litmus test of the readers’ stance on paternalism," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 76(3), pages 297-315, March.
  13. 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.
  14. Trautmann, Stefan T. & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2011. "Pricing risk and ambiguity: The effect of perspective taking," Kiel Working Papers 1727, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
  15. Robert Reilly & Douglas Davis, 2015. "The effects of uncertainty on the WTA–WTP gap," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 78(2), pages 261-272, February.
  16. Trautmann, Stefan T. & Traxler, Christian, 2010. "Reserve prices as reference points - Evidence from auctions for football players at Hattrick.org," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 230-240, April.

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