The trade off between time and money: Is there a difference between real and hypothetical choices?

Gunnar Isacsson ()
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Gunnar Isacsson: VTI, Postal: Transport Economics, P.O. Box 760, SE-781 27 Borlange, Sweden

No 2007:3, Working Papers from Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI)

Abstract: This paper reports the results from one experiment and one quasi-experiment used to investigate the potential problem of “hypothetical bias” in surveys involving an individual’s valuation of time. The experiment compares hypothetical and real choices regarding an offer to participate in a survey in exchange for money. The quasi-experiment compares hypothetical and real choices regarding two bus journeys, one fast and expensive and the other slow and cheap. In both of these experiments, real choices differ significantly from hypothetical ones. The paper estimates parametric distributions of the value of time by applying the general method of moments (GMM) estimator. Since the samples are relatively small a parametric bootstrap is used to obtain asymptotic refinement of statistical tests. The results in the experiment as well as in the quasi-experiment suggest a value of time which is higher when the choice is for real than when the choice is hypothetical. Assuming that the value of time distribution is exponential, real choices produce a mean value of time twice as large as the corresponding hypothetical value.

Keywords: Hypothetical bias; Experiment; Value of time; Generalized Method of Moments estimator; Bootstrap; Asymptotic refinement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C12 C15 C91 H54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2007-03-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:vtiwps:2007_003

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