Testing willingness to pay elicitation mechanisms in the field: Evidence from Uganda

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Burchardi, Konrad B.; de Quidt, Jonathan; Gulesci, Selim; Lerva, Benedetta; Tripodi, Stefano
• 署名单位: Stockholm University; Trinity College Dublin; Trinity College Dublin; Trinity College Dublin; Stockholm School of Economics; The World Bank; Copenhagen Business School
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102701
• 发表日期: 2021
• 关键词: Willingness to pay; Becker-DeGroot-Marschak; field experiment

摘要

Researchers frequently use variants of the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism to elicit willingness to pay (WTP). These variants involve numerous incentive-irrelevant design choices, some of which carry advantages for implementation but may deteriorate participant comprehension or trust in the mechanism, which are well-known problems with the BDM. We highlight three such features and test them in the field in rural Uganda, a relevant population for many recent applications. Comprehension is very high, and 86 percent of participants bid optimally for an induced-value voucher, with little variation across treatments. This gives confidence for similar applications, and suggests the comprehension-expediency trade-off is mild.