Behavioral implications of providing real incentives in stated choice experiments

Morten Mørkbak, Søren Olsen and Danny Campbell ()

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2014, vol. 45, issue C, 102-116

Abstract: This paper explores the potential impacts of introducing real economic incentives in choice experiments (CE). While many others have investigated such impacts before, the majority of the literature has focused solely on mitigation of hypothetical bias. We contribute to this literature by widening the scope of research to other behavioral aspects where consumers in CE are often found to deviate from homo economicus. We develop a theoretical model where not only Willingness to pay (WTP) measures but also decision processing can be affected by the introduction of an economic incentive. Specifically, our model allows for differential impacts on attribute processing, depending on the character of the attribute as well as self-image effects. In an empirical CE survey, we find some, though not unequivocal, support of our model. Even though we find no impact on WTP from introducing an economic incentive, we find marked benefits in relation to a number of behavioral aspects that together would favor the use of an economic incentive regardless of hypothetical bias being present or not.

Keywords: Choice experiments; Willingness to pay; Food choice; Real incentives; Non-attendance; Self-image (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 C92 D63 Q13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487014000592
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:joepsy:v:45:y:2014:i:c:p:102-116

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2014.07.004

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Psychology is currently edited by G. Antonides and D. Read

More articles in Journal of Economic Psychology from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().