What is the Causal Impact of Knowledge on Preferences in Stated Preference Studies?

Nick Hanley and Mikolaj Czajkowski

Discussion Papers in Environment and Development Economics from University of St. Andrews, School of Geography and Sustainable Development

Abstract: This paper reports the results of a stated preference experiment designed to test for how information provided in a survey affects knowledge, and how knowledge affects preferences for a public good. A novel experimental design allows us to elicit subjects’ ex ante knowledge levels about a good’s attributes, exogenously vary how much new objective information about these attributes we provide to subjects, elicit subjects’ valuation for the good, and elicit posterior knowledge states about the same attributes. We find evidence of incomplete learning and fatigue: as subjects are told more information, their marginal learning rates decrease. We find there is no marginal impact of knowledge on the mean nor the variance of WTP for changes in the environmental good; but that ex ante knowledge does affect stated WTP. Our results are consistent with preference formation models of confirmation bias, costly search, or timing differences in learning and preference formation. Our results raise questions about the purpose and effects of providing information in stated preference studies

Keywords: Learning; Information; Behavioral Economics; Decision Making Under Uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 D83 Q51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 60 pages
Date: 2016-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-knm and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/dept-of-geograph ... 20&%20Czajkowski.pdf
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/dept-of-geography-and-sustainable-development/pdf-s/DP%202016-09%20Nick%20Hanley%20%20&%20Czajkowski.pdf [302 Found]--> https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/dept-of-geography-and-sustainable-development/pdf-s/DP%202016-09%20Nick%20Hanley%20%20&%20Czajkowski.pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: What is the Causal Impact of Knowledge on Preferences in Stated Preference Studies? (2016)
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:sss:wpaper:2016-09

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers in Environment and Development Economics from University of St. Andrews, School of Geography and Sustainable Development Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Laure Kuhfuss ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).