TY - JOUR
T1 - Attending to the reasons for attribute non-attendance in choice experiments
AU - Alemu, Mohammed Hussen
AU - Mørkbak, Morten Raun
AU - Olsen, Soren Boye
AU - Jensen, Carsten Lynge
PY - 2013/3
Y1 - 2013/3
N2 - This paper focuses on behavioural reasons underlying stated attribute non-attendance in choice experiments. In order to identify and incorporate procedures for dealing with heterogeneous attribute processing strategies, we ask respondents follow-up questions regarding their reasons for ignoring attributes. Based on these statements, we conclude that the standard way of assigning a zero impact of ignored attributes on the likelihood is inappropriate. We find that some respondents act in accordance with the passive bounded rationality assumption since they ignore an attribute simply because it does not affect their utility. Excluding these genuine zero preferences, as the standard approach essentially does, might bias results. Other respondents claim to have ignored attributes to simplify choices. However, we find that these respondents have actually not completely ignored attributes. We argue along the rationally adaptive behavioural model that valid preference information may indeed be elicited in these cases, and we illustrate how recoding of non-attendance statements conditional on stated reasons may be a more appropriate solution than the current standard way of taking stated non-attendance into account.
AB - This paper focuses on behavioural reasons underlying stated attribute non-attendance in choice experiments. In order to identify and incorporate procedures for dealing with heterogeneous attribute processing strategies, we ask respondents follow-up questions regarding their reasons for ignoring attributes. Based on these statements, we conclude that the standard way of assigning a zero impact of ignored attributes on the likelihood is inappropriate. We find that some respondents act in accordance with the passive bounded rationality assumption since they ignore an attribute simply because it does not affect their utility. Excluding these genuine zero preferences, as the standard approach essentially does, might bias results. Other respondents claim to have ignored attributes to simplify choices. However, we find that these respondents have actually not completely ignored attributes. We argue along the rationally adaptive behavioural model that valid preference information may indeed be elicited in these cases, and we illustrate how recoding of non-attendance statements conditional on stated reasons may be a more appropriate solution than the current standard way of taking stated non-attendance into account.
KW - Attribute non-attendance
KW - Choice experiment
KW - Error component logit model
KW - Passive bounded rationality
KW - Rationally adaptive behaviour
U2 - 10.1007/s10640-012-9597-8
DO - 10.1007/s10640-012-9597-8
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0924-6460
VL - 54
SP - 333
EP - 359
JO - Environmental and Resource Economics
JF - Environmental and Resource Economics
IS - 3
ER -