Inducing Strategic Bias: and its implications for Choice Modelling design

Michael Burton

Environmental Economics Research Hub Research Reports from Environmental Economics Research Hub, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

Abstract: It has been suggested that the nature of the task within a multi-attribute multi-alternative choice experiment may be sufficiently complex to make it difficult for individuals to develop response strategies to strategically bias their answers. This experiment tested that hypothesis by setting experimental conditions that provide incentives for strategic bias. By changing design parameters one can investigate whether the strategic bias can be reduced. The answer is effectively no: under most circumstances, respondents could find a strategy that achieved significant bias in inferred preferences. The circumstances where this did not occur (involving ranking alternatives, rather than selecting a single preferred alternative) the inferred preferences reflected neither the intended bias, nor their original preferences, making the answers useless to both respondent and researcher.

Keywords: Strategic bias; choice modeling; complexity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 Q51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Working Paper: Inducing Strategic Bias: and its implications for Choice Modelling design (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:een:eenhrr:1061

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