Cheap Talk Reconsidered: New Evidence from CVM

David Aadland () and Arthur Caplan

No 2002-20, Working Papers from Utah State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Two recent studies have shown that “cheap talk” is an effective means of eliminating positive hypothetical bias in experimental and field-auction settings. We further investigate the ability of cheap talk to mitigate positive hypothetical bias in a CVM phone survey administered to over 4,000 households. Positive hypothetical bias is first detected in our data by contrasting revealed and stated preference information. However, a short, neutral cheap-talk script appears to exacerbate rather than mitigate the bias. Based on this and mixed evidence from earlier studies, we suggest caution in using cheap talk as an ex ante control for hypothetical bias.

Keywords: Ncheap talk; contingent valuation; hypothetical bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C35 Q26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2002-12
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://repec.bus.usu.edu/RePEc/usu/pdf/ERI2002-20.pdf First version, 2002 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Cheap talk reconsidered: New evidence from CVM (2006)
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:usu:wpaper:2002-20

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Utah State University, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by John Gilbert ().