Hypothetical, real, and predicted real willingness to pay in open-ended surveys: experimental results

Anabela Botelho () and Ligia Costa Pinto ()
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Ligia Costa Pinto: NIMA, Universidade do Minho, http://nima.eeg.uminho.pt

No 12, Working Papers from Núcleo de Investigação em Microeconomia Aplicada (NIMA), Universidade do Minho

Abstract: This study reports the results of experiments designed to elicit, within a controlled laboratory environment, hypothetical and real willingness to pay for an environmental educational program using the open-ended question format. By maintaining both the good and the question format constant across the treatments, our experiments overcome the shortcomings of recently reported experimental results, providing a clean test for hypothetical bias in open-ended valuations. Having found a statistically significant difference between the hypothetical and real values, we turn into the question of whether hypothetical valuations may nonetheless provide useful statistical information concerning individuals’ real valuations. This question, which is perhaps the key question in the current state of the debate surrounding the contingent valuation method, is answered affirmatively in this study.

Keywords: experimental methods; contingent valuation methods; calibration methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 Q26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
Date: 2001-09
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