Preference Elicitation under Oath

Nicolas Jacquemet (), Joule, Robert-Vincent (), Stéphane Luchini () and Jason Shogren ()
Additional contact information
Joule, Robert-Vincent: Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale - Université de Provence
Stéphane Luchini: GREQAM - Groupe de Recherche en Economie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille

Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL

Abstract: Eliciting sincere preferences for non-market goods remains a challenge due to hypothetical bias - the so-called gap between hypothetical monetary values and real economic commitments. The gap arises because people either overstate hypothetical values or understate real commitments or a combination of both. Herein we examine whether the traditional real-world institution of the solenn oath can improve preference elicitation. Applying the social psychology theory on the oath as a truth-telling-commitment device, we ask our bidders to swear on their honour to give honest answers prior to participating in an incentive-compatible second-price auction. Results from our induced valuation testbed treatments suggest the oath-only auctions outperform all other auctions (real, hypothetical, and real-with-oath). In our homegrown valuation treatments eliciting preferences for dolphin protection, the oath-only design induced people to treat as binding both their budget constraint (i.e., lower values on the high end of the value distribution) and participation constraint (i.e., positive values rather than zero bids used to opt out of auction). Our oath-only results are robust to extra training on the auction and to consequential wording about the reason for the oath.

Keywords: Oath; commitment; Vickrey auction; hypothetical bias; induced values; homegrown values. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-upt
Date: Written
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00396721/en/

Downloads: (external link)
http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/39/67/21/PDF/09043.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Preference Elicitation under Oath (2009)
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00396721_v1

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL
Series data maintained by CCSD ().