Household versus individual valuation: what’s the difference?

Alistair Munro () and Ian J. Bateman ()

No 06/02, Royal Holloway, University of London: Discussion Papers in Economics from Department of Economics, Royal Holloway University of London

Abstract: Standard practice in stated preference typically blurs the distinction between household and individual responses, but without a clear theoretical or empirical justification for this approach. To date there have been no empirical tests of whether values for say a two adult household elicited by interviewing one randomly selected adult are the same as the values generated by interviewing both adults simultaneously. Using cohabiting couples, we conduct a choice experiment field study valuing reductions in dietary health risks. In one treatment a random individual is chosen from the couple and interviewed alone; in the other treatment, both partners are questioned jointly. We find significant differences in household values calculated from joint as opposed to individual responses, with further variation between the values elicited from men and women. Our results question the assumption, implicit in common practice, that differences between individually and jointly elicited estimates of household values can effectively be ignored.

Keywords: Household values; choice experiment; contingent valuation; food and health risks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D13 D80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm and nep-exp
Date: 2006-02, Revised 2006-02
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Journal Article: Household Versus Individual Valuation: What’s the Difference? (2009)
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