Assessing the elicitation of perceived status quo information as a tool to increase survey engagement and enhance accuracy of preference estimates in discrete choice experiments

Marios Zachariou (), Diane Burgess, Catherine Glass and Graham Finney
Additional contact information
Marios Zachariou: Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI)
Diane Burgess: Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI)
Catherine Glass: Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI)
Graham Finney: Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI)

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, 2025, vol. 27, issue 1, No 5, 85-108

Abstract: Abstract Recent advancements in choice modelling practice include the embedding of individual heterogeneity in the modelling procedure by matching subjective perceptions about the status quo with experimentally designed choice cards. Beyond potentially mitigating bias in welfare estimations, we argue that the process of eliciting status quo information increases the engagement of respondents with the survey, rendering them more prepared to receive context-specific information and conduct hypothetical trade-offs. Moreover, it enables the researcher to utilise the perceived status quo information to provide choice sets that are specific to each respondent. To assess the gains of the practice, we ran a choice experiment survey with two separate samples that followed distinct preference elicitation procedures, the main difference being whether respondents were asked or not to state their perceived status quo prior to or following the choice task. By conducting independent hypothesis testing for each sample, we found that respondents who were asked to state their perceptions prior to the choice task made likely better use of the provided information while their decision-making was less likely to be governed by an anti-status quo effect. On the other hand, respondents who did not state their perceptions prior to the choice task made inconsistent choices, particularly by opting for scenarios inferior to their perceived status quo.

Keywords: Choice experiment; Water quality; Perceived status quo; Survey engagement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10018-024-00409-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:envpol:v:27:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s10018-024-00409-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... mental/journal/10018

DOI: 10.1007/s10018-024-00409-0

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies is currently edited by Ken-Ichi Akao

More articles in Environmental Economics and Policy Studies from Springer, Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().