SELF IMAGE AND CHOICE EXPERIMENTS: HYPOTHETICAL AND ACTUAL WILLINGNESS TO PAY

Olof Johansson-Stenman () and Henrik Svedsäter ()
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Henrik Svedsäter: Department of Psychology, Göteborg University, Postal: Box 500, SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG

No 94, Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper proposes that people derive utility from a positive self-image, influenced by ethical views, internal honesty, and consistency between sequential choices. A model is tested by conducting the same choice-experiment for two WWF-campaigns in three different contexts. It predicts that marginal WTP for contributions to these campaigns is highest when choices are hypothetical, lower in a real-money experiment that follows a hypothetical experiment, and lowest when real-money choices are made directly. Additionally, it predicts that marginal WTP decreases with the scale of financial incentives in a real-money experiment. The empirical results are consistent with these hypotheses.

Keywords: choice experiment; self-image; hypothetical and real WTP; cognitive dissonance; environmental valuation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2003-03-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-dcm, nep-exp and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0094

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