Self-selected intervals in psycho-physic experiments and the measurement of willingness to pay

Marco Persichina () and Bengt Kriström ()
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Marco Persichina: CERE - the Center for Environmental and Resource Economics
Bengt Kriström: CERE - the Center for Environmental and Resource Economics

No 2020:16, CERE Working Papers from CERE - the Center for Environmental and Resource Economics

Abstract: Standard elicitation approaches used to obtain quantitative information typically assumes that individuals can provide a precise value. For unfamiliar (as as well as familiar) goods, this is a strong assumption. We suggest they use of self-selected intervals, in which the shortest possible interval is a point, i.e. the standard case. To explore this idea we use a state-of-the-art psychophysics lab experiment (N=60), in which five "focal" sound environments were randomly inserted into a set of 30 pairwise comparisons to elicit the subjective value of reducing ambient noise. We found that valuation uncertainty, measured as the length of a self-selected interval, is independent of the psychophysical conditions. The length of the interval is determined mainly by the subjective value of improving the environment, independent of the level of noise. These results, according to our review of the literature, are new. Interval elicitation enable individuals to provide reasonably consistent rankings of environmental improvements, even if individuals find it difficult to pin down a precise value. Thus, self-selected interval elicitation seems to have merit.

Keywords: self-selected interval; willingness to pay; elicitation surveys; psychophysics stimuli; sound experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D61 D91 Q59 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2020-12-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-exp and nep-upt
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:slucer:2020_016

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