Can Hypothetical Questions Reveal True Values? A Laboratory Comparison of Dichotomous Choice and Open-Ended Contingent Values with Auction Values

Edward Balistreri, Gary McClelland, Gregory Poe and William Schulze

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2001, vol. 18, issue 3, 275-292

Abstract: Can hypothetical questions reveal true values? An examination of thelaboratory experimental literature examining contingent valuation (CV)lends some support for using open-ended hypothetical willingness to payquestions. However, experimental studies examining dichotomous choicehave found that hypothetical answers overstate demand. Consistent withthe experimental literature, published CV studies comparing open-ended todichotomous choice questions have shown that values from the dichotomouschoice method equal or exceed those of the open-ended method in everycase. This paper presents a series of experiments employing more than 800subjects to test this hypothesis for CV and compares the CV results toactual auction values in a single controlled experimental environment. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001

Keywords: contingent valuation; elicitation methods; validity; experimental economics; OEQ (open-ended questions); DCQ (dichotomous choice questions); WTP (willingness to pay) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

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Working Paper: Can Hypothetical Questions Reveal True Values? A Laboratory Comparison of Dichotomous Choice and Open-Ended Contingent Values with Auction Values (1996)
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DOI: 10.1023/A:1011130018891

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