Premium
Cheap Talk Scripts and Online Choice Experiments: “Looking Beyond the Mean”
Author(s) -
Tonsor Glynn T.,
Shupp Robert S.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.1093/ajae/aar036
Subject(s) - respondent , willingness to pay , sample (material) , scripting language , focus (optics) , population , cheap talk , econometrics , economics , marketing , statistics , computer science , business , microeconomics , mathematics , political science , sociology , demography , chemistry , physics , optics , chromatography , law , operating system
This paper presents the first known assessment of cheap talk effectiveness in a choice experiment conducted online with a focus on the distinction between impacts on stated willingness to pay at the population mean and in targeted sub‐samples. Utilizing a large national survey and split‐sample experimental design, we find cheap talk scripts may not only influence the level of willingness to pay estimated for representative consumers, but also may produce more reliable estimates. The magnitude of the impact that cheap talk has on willingness to pay is found to depend on the evaluated respondent sub‐sample.