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Do Experience and Cheap Talk influence Willingness to Pay in an Open-Ended Contingent Valuation Survey?

Author

Listed:
  • Carlsson, Fredrik

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

  • Martinsson, Peter

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the effect of information on respondents’ willingness to pay to avoid power outages in Sweden, by employing an open-ended contingent valuation survey.Two aspects of information are tested; (i) if increased experience from power outages manifested by one of the worst hurricanes ever in Sweden with long power outages as a result and (ii) if a cheap talk script affect the respondents’ WTP. The results indicate that experience increases the proportion of respondents with a zero WTP significantly, which is consistent with the view presented in media in the backwash of the hurricane stressing the right to access power without outages. On the other hand, the cheap talk script decreased the proportion of respondents with zero WTP. In both cases, however, there is no significant effect on the stated WTP conditional on reporting a positive WTP. Thus,information seems to affect the proportion of respondents with a zero WTP, and implications of this on future applications of open-ended contingent valuation surveys are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlsson, Fredrik & Martinsson, Peter, 2006. "Do Experience and Cheap Talk influence Willingness to Pay in an Open-Ended Contingent Valuation Survey?," Working Papers in Economics 190, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0190
    Note: Published with new title "The effect of power outages and cheap talk on willingness to pay to reduce outages" in Energy Economics, 2011, Vol. 33, pp. 790-798.
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Naghmeh Niroomand & Glenn P. Jenkins, 2018. "Estimation of Households’ and Businesses’ Willingness to Pay for Improved Reliability of Electricity Supply in Nepal," Development Discussion Papers 2018-05, JDI Executive Programs.
    4. Chen, Xuqi & Gao, Zhifeng & House, Lisa, 2015. "Willingness to Pay for Niche Fresh Produce across the States: Why Are Consumers Willing to Pay More for the Less Favorite?," 2015 Annual Meeting, January 31-February 3, 2015, Atlanta, Georgia 196901, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    5. Nicolas Jacquemet & Alexander James & Stéphane Luchini & Jason Shogren, 2011. "Social Psychology and Environmental Economics: A New Look at ex ante Corrections of Biased Preference Evaluation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(3), pages 413-433, March.
    6. José Alberto Lara-Pulido & Ángela Mojica & Aaron Bruner & Alejandro Guevara-Sanginés & Cecilia Simon & Felipe Vásquez-Lavin & Cristopher González-Baca & María José Infanzón, 2021. "A Business Case for Marine Protected Areas: Economic Valuation of the Reef Attributes of Cozumel Island," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-18, April.
    7. Sandorf, Erlend Dancke & Campbell, Danny & Hanley, Nick, 2017. "Disentangling the influence of knowledge on attribute non-attendance," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 36-50.
    8. Aygul Ozbafli & Glenn P. Jenkins, 2015. "The Willingness To Pay By Households For Improved Reliability Of Electricity Service," Development Discussion Papers 2015-02, JDI Executive Programs.
    9. Dominique Ami & Frédéric Aprahamian & Olivier Chanel & Stéphane Luchini, 2011. "A Test of Cheap Talk in Different Hypothetical Contexts: The Case of Air Pollution," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 50(1), pages 111-130, September.
    10. Morteza Chalak & Veronique Florec & Atakelty Hailu & Fiona Gibson & David Pannell, 2017. "Integrating non-market values in economic analyses of flood mitigation: a case study of the Brown Hill and Keswick creeks catchment in Adelaide," Working Papers 256513, University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    11. Xuqi Chen & Yan Heng & Zhifeng Gao & Yuan Jiang, 2022. "Impacts of duo‐regional generic advertising of social media on consumer preference," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(1), pages 21-44, January.
    12. De La Maza, Cristóbal & Davis, Alex & Azevedo, Inês, 2021. "Welfare analysis of the ecological impacts of electricity production in Chile using the sparse multinomial logit model," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    13. Shi, Lijia & Gao, Zhifeng & Chen, Xuqi, 2014. "The cross-price effect on willingness-to-pay estimates in open-ended contingent valuation," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 13-21.
    14. Anabela Botelho & Lina Sofia Lourenço-Gomes & Lígia Costa Pinto & Sara Sousa & Marieta Valente, 2015. "Annoyance and welfare costs from the presence of renewable energy power plants: an application of the contingent valuation method," NIMA Working Papers 60, Núcleo de Investigação em Microeconomia Aplicada (NIMA), Universidade do Minho.
    15. Aravena, Claudia & Hutchinson, W. George & Longo, Alberto, 2012. "Environmental pricing of externalities from different sources of electricity generation in Chile," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 1214-1225.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Contingent Valuation; Cheap talk; Information; Power outages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices

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