Hess, S and Giergiczny, M (2015) Intra-respondent heterogeneity in a stated choice survey on wetland conservation in Belarus: First steps towards creating a link with uncertainty in contingent valuation. Environmental and Resource Economics, 60 (3). 327 - 347. ISSN 0924-6460
Abstract
Applications of discrete choice models in environmental valuation increasingly use a random coefficient specification, such as mixed logit, to represent taste heterogeneity. The majority of applications rely on data containing multiple observations for each respondent, where a common assumption is that tastes stay constant across choices for the same respondent. We question this assumption and make use of a model developed in the transport field which allows tastes to vary over choices for each consumer in addition to variation across consumers. An empirical analysis making use of a stated choice dataset for wetland conservation in Belarus shows that superior performance is obtained by allowing jointly for the two types of heterogeneity and that recovery of these intra-respondent variations is not possible using standard approaches, such as allowing for scale heterogeneity across tasks. We show also that intra-respondent heterogeneity can be especially high for attributes which respondents are unfamiliar with, and that a failure to account for it can substantially affect welfare estimates. We interpret this as an indication that this heterogeneity relates primarily to uncertainty. Finally, we offer initial insights into the relationship between intra-respondent heterogeneity and findings on uncertainty in a contingent valuation context.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Environmental and Resource Economics. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10640-014-9769-9 |
Keywords: | Stated preference data; Random taste heterogeneity; Mixed logit; Intra-respondent heterogeneity; Wetland conservation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > Institute for Transport Studies (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 30 Mar 2015 12:45 |
Last Modified: | 21 Jan 2018 18:43 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10640-014-9769-9 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Verlag |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s10640-014-9769-9 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:84328 |