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on Discrete Choice Models |
| By: | Liu, Mengyu; Jin, Yana; Hu, Wuyang |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how information and framing shape consumers’ preferences of sustainability attributes in China’s pork market, and whether information-induced preference shifts persist over time. We implement a discrete choice experiment with pork consumers in Beijing and Shanghai (N = 887), varying price and three attributes, carbon footprint, water pollution, and animal welfare. The experiment embeds three randomized interventions designed to map onto distinct behavioral channels: child-related framing, health warning-style tips displayed within choice sets, and a two-stage design that introduces a time gap between information exposure and the choice tasks. Mixed logit estimates show targeted preference shifts consistent with these channels. Child-related framing reduces price sensitivity and strengthens aversion to high water pollution. Health tips increase aversion to low animal welfare, with effects concentrated among respondents with weaker baseline healthy-eating habits. By contrast, carbon-footprint valuations decay as the information-to-choice gap lengthens, suggesting limited durability for more abstract attributes. WTP estimates imply economically meaningful premia for sustainability improvements, particularly for reducing water pollution. Overall, the results provide experimentally identified evidence on when information interventions shift multi-attribute sustainability valuations, for whom, and how durable those shifts are, with implications for the timing and design of sustainability labeling and nudging policies. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404463 |
| By: | Kiesel, Kristin; Lee, Hyunjung |
| Abstract: | This study examines how consumers across income groups respond to sustainability-related food labels and claims in local food purchasing decisions. Using a field experiment conducted in Solano County, California, the analysis combines stated preference measures, including perceived quality and willingness to pay (WTP), with revealed preference measures based on actual purchase decisions. Participants evaluated strawberry baskets before and after exposure to different combinations of sustainability-related labels and claims, including the USDA Organic seal and the Sustainable Solano logo. The results suggest that sustainability-related labels generally increase both perceived quality and WTP relative to unlabeled products, although the effectiveness of different labeling strategies varies. The USDA Organic seal generates the strongest improvements in perceived quality, while combining local sustainability claims with the USDA Organic seal produces largest increase in WTP, suggesting that monetary valuations reflect not only perceived product quality but also broader consumer values, such as support for local farmers and regional food systems. The findings also reveal substantial heterogeneity across income groups, with lower-income consumers exhibiting stronger responses to label information than higherincome consumers. At the same time, the results highlight an important distinction between stated and revealed preferences. Although labels improve product evaluations and valuations, their effects on actual purchase decisions remain relatively limited, suggesting that consumer purchasing behavior may be more resistant to change than stated evaluations alone would imply. |
| Keywords: | Marketing |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404533 |
| By: | Kartakis, Stelios; Thiermann, Insa; Cingiz, Kutay; Wesseler, Justus |
| Abstract: | Plant products issued a plant passport upon risk-based border inspections can circulate freely within the European Union. Border control inspections are imperfect, and pests or pathogens may remain undetected. Post-border detection efforts can reduce the risk of further spread and partly rely on voluntary actions by actors involved in plant trade, such as nurseries. Nurseries have a direct interest in healthy plant material, yet investments in early detection technologies remain driven by private incentives. We investigate nursery preferences for volatile organic compound (VOC) “e-nose” sensors using a discrete choice experiment among 343 nursery operators in Italy, Romania, Germany, and France. Respondents evaluated VOC sensor alternatives against the status quo of existing inspection practices. Choice data were analyzed using mixed logit and latent class models. The predicted probability of choosing a VOC sensor alternative was 76%. Adoption decisions were primarily shaped by cost considerations and performance-related attributes, particularly detection speed and reliability. Certification potential and ownership structure of the technology were considered less important. Cross-country differences indicate that nurseries place varying importance on technology attributes, suggesting that technology design and commercialization strategies should account for heterogeneous end-user preferences. Adoption likelihood is higher among nurseries that are members of professional associations, pointing to the role of networks in fostering technology diffusion. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404459 |
| By: | Cheng, Haotian; Liu, Yuanyuan |
| Abstract: | China is at a critical stage of dietary structure upgrading and food system transformation. Traditional livestock production has resulted in a significant carbon footprint in China’s meat supply chain. Cultured meat is considered an emerging alternative protein source to maintain the meat consumption experience and potentially reducing carbon footprints. However, consumers’ willingness to pay for cultured meat is also influenced by surrounding environmental information. This study explores whether information credibility increases Chinese urban consumers’ willingness to pay for cultured meat. Using 1262 survey questionnaires from four major international consumer cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing), we divided the respondents into three groups based on information credibility and used a Double-bound Contingent Valuation method. The results show that Chinese urban consumers are generally willing to pay a premium for level AA certification label, high protein content, and low carbon footprint cultured meat, but the magnitude of willingness to pay depends on the information consumers receive. Importantly, respondents in the no information group showed the highest average willingness to pay. All information prompts consumers to conduct cautious and risk-aware evaluations, while insufficient information (Tainted Truth Effect) introduces credibility ambiguity, weakening consumers' reliance on factual details. This study has significant implications for evaluating the feasibility of China’s diversified food security strategy, Big Food View and demand-side low-carbon consumption policies. |
| Keywords: | Marketing |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404528 |
| By: | Lueras, Ruby |
| Abstract: | Climate change is expected to reduce the productivity of traditional sugar maple forests across much of the United States, creating challenges for maple syrup producers and motivating interest in climate adaptation strategies. One potential adaptation strategy is the diversification of sugarbushes with alternative sap-producing tree species such as birch and beech. However, the market viability of these products depends on consumer acceptance. This study examines consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for diversified syrup blends and evaluates whether climate-related information influences purchasing behavior. Using a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) experimental auction, 191 participants submitted bids for pure maple syrup, a maple-birch blend, and a maple-birch-beech blend across three rounds: a blind tasting round, a composition disclosure round, and an information treatment round. Participants were randomly assigned to either a neutral control, a forest diversification treatment, or a place-based climate information treatment. Results indicate that consumers generally preferred products more closely resembling traditional maple syrup, with pure maple syrup receiving the highest bids and maple-birchbeech blends receiving the lowest. Revealing syrup composition significantly increased bids relative to blind tasting, while the climate-related information treatments did not significantly affect willingness to pay. Regression results further suggest that taste preferences were the strongest and most consistent predictor of bidding behavior. These findings indicate that consumer acceptance of diversified syrup products is driven primarily by sensory characteristics rather than climate-related messaging, highlighting the importance of product quality in the successful commercialization of climate-adapted food products. |
| Keywords: | Research Methods/ Statistical Methods |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404523 |
| By: | Kai Wang |
| Abstract: | There is a largely overlooked assumption underlying stochastic choice theory: menus are assigned exogenously, as if by a hidden randomized controlled trial. This assumption is not innocuous, because in many real-world settings menus are assigned endogenously according to the decision makers' preferences. This paper studies Random Utility Model under menu endogeneity and shows that any seemingly anomalous choice behavior can be generated by a population of rational decision makers with heterogeneous preferences facing endogenously assigned menus. To address this problem, I propose a new causal estimand: the probability that an alternative would be chosen from a given menu if that menu were presented to the entire population. I then characterize sharp bounds on this estimand using observed menu and choice frequencies. In addition, I show that when choices are observed across multiple markets with different preference distributions and a common menu-assignment rule, the causal estimands from those markets and the menu assignment rule are uniquely identified. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2607.08218 |
| By: | Xu, Alan; Chen, Rui |
| Abstract: | Climate adaptation in controlled environment agriculture increasingly depends on biological technologies that differ in how deeply they intervene in plant function. Genetic modification, beneficial microorganisms, and conventional plant breeding are often grouped together as climate-smart innovations, leaving consumers without a framework to differentiate them on the basis of biological intervention. We test whether disclosing the intrusiveness of each technology reshapes consumer choices. A nationwide discrete choice experiment with 4, 824 U.S. consumers randomly assigned half of respondents to a control condition and half to a treatment condition labeling plant breeding as low intrusive, beneficial microorganisms as low-to-moderately intrusive, and genetic modification as highly intrusive. Without disclosure, consumers strongly penalize genetic modification but do not significantly differentiate breeding from microorganisms. Disclosure deepens aversion to genetic modification, eliminates the baseline premium on beneficial microorganisms, and modestly improves preferences for breeding. Heterogeneity analyses show that women, college-educated consumers, and political moderates respond most strongly to disclosure, while prior technology attitudes amplify rather than narrow the treatment effect on genetic modification. The results indicate that transparency about biological intervention does not uniformly raise acceptance of climate-smart technologies. It reallocates demand along a perceived naturalness gradient and can polarize as much as it informs. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404587 |
| By: | Brudevold-Newman, Andrew Peter; Boxho, Claire Elise; Montalvao Machado, Joao H. C.; O'Sullivan, Michael; Proenca, Matheus |
| Abstract: | Insecure land rights and limited access to modern inputs are often seen as key constraints on smallholder investment in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper studies both in a three-year field experiment with women farmers in Mozambique, cross-randomizing a statutory land registration intervention with a subsidized package of agricultural inputs and climate-smart agriculture training, and eliciting willingness to pay for the package at randomized prices. Demand for registration was high, but its effects were limited: it produced only a temporary gain in perceived tenure security and did not raise willingness to pay for inputs or down-stream investment. Despite gender-targeted titling, it also did not improve women’s intra-household security or decision-making power. The input-and-training package raised input use but reduced harvests, with exploratory evidence of a shift toward a more shock-prone crop; the losses persisted even after households fully reverted to pre-program practices. Consistent with negative social learning, non-recipients with more treated network connections also reduced their adoption of climate-smart practices over time. Relaxing both constraints together produced no effects beyond either intervention alone. |
| Date: | 2026–06–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11421 |
| By: | Woolley, Trevor |
| Abstract: | When a regulation raises the price of a good voters regularly buy, market purchases and referendum votes identify two distinct equilibrium objects. Purchases reveal what consumers are willing to pay for the regulated good unilaterally; votes reveal what they are willing to pay for the collective outcome the regulation produces. The difference is non-use value—willingness to pay for components of the policy that are totally disconnected from private consumption— and it is identified by combining the two data sources without restriction on how consumption and public-good preferences interact in utility. The framework jointly models pocketbook and public-good channels within a single voting equation, identifying the former from market data outside that equation, and provides the first revealed-preference decomposition of total willingness to pay for a public good into use and non-use components. I apply the framework to California’s Proposition 12 (2018), a ballot initiative that mandated cage-free housing for laying hens and passed with 63 percent support despite raising egg prices. A logit demand model on NielsenIQ retail scanner data yields a median private MWTP of $0.11 per dozen against an average cage-free premium of $1.06; a fractional logit of precinct-level vote shares on a supplyside- instrumented “non-use price” yields a coefficient of −0.063 (SE = 0.010). The recovered WTP distribution implies that over 85 percent of voter benefit—roughly $17 of $20 per capita per year—is non-use, and predicts that 64 percent of Californians had positive net WTP for the policy, matching the actual 63 percent Yes vote out of sample. The framework extends to any referendum in which the voter’s cost is a commodity price change and a substitute for the regulated good trades in observable retail markets. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404496 |
| By: | Christopher P. Chambers; M. Bumin Yenmez |
| Abstract: | A choice rule is $q$-acceptant if it chooses $\min\{q, |X|\}$ alternatives from each set $X$. We show that a path-independent rule of maximum cardinality at most $q$ need not have a $q$-acceptant path-independent expansion, refuting Chambers and Yenmez (2017, Theorem 4). We construct a one-school matching market whose unique stable matching leaves a seat vacant that no path-independent expansion of the school's rule fills. Every path-independent rule satisfying the law of aggregate demand has such an expansion. We characterize the choice rules admitting an acceptant expansion by monotone selections of rejected alternatives. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.07022 |
| By: | Puri, Roshan; Levers, Lucia |
| Abstract: | California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requires groundwater basins to achieve sustainable use by 2040, a transition projected to retire 500, 000 to 1 million acres of irrigated farmland. Virtually all of this retired land will be in California’s great Central Valley, an agricultural powerhouse and part of the Pacific Flyway, a major avian migration route. In California, over 95% of native wetlands and 60% of grasslands and oak savannahs have been lost, making SGMA-driven land retirement a rare opportunity to restore wildlife habitat at scale. Realizing this opportunity requires substantial public investment, yet the public value of habitat restoration on retired farmland remains unquantified, as well as how the public sees the difference between wetland and dryland habitats, both for the varying species they support but also their co-benefits such as water use and groundwater recharge. We estimate willingness to pay (WTP) of California households for converting SGMA-retired farmland to permanent wetland and dryland habitat using a contingent valuation (CV) approach. We find mean WTP of approximately $50 to $67 per household for wetland restoration and $49 to $61 for dryland restoration, aggregating conservatively to one-time statewide benefits of $563 million to $773 million depending on program type, estimation approach, and distributional assumptions. These results demonstrate broad public support for habitat restoration on SGMA-retired farmland and provide an empirical basis for evaluating and allocating public investment across competing restoration alternatives. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404452 |
| By: | Chris Angstmann; Tim Gebbie |
| Abstract: | We derive an operational-time variance kernel for a latent-order-book reaction boundary and use it to separate three objects usually collapsed in calendar-time volatility models: a structural boundary cumulant, a clock projection, and a pricing-measure choice. The reaction boundary is the zero of a bid--ask imbalance field. For a locally linear book, signed order-flow perturbations displace this zero through a damped Abel response kernel, so the variance of boundary increments is obtained as a finite-scale Green-function cumulant rather than introduced as a primitive diffusion coefficient. For long-memory forcing with exponent $0 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2607.05011 |
| By: | Osman, Eliyasu Y.; Bergtold, Jason S.; Lindamood, Jackson; Caldas, Marcellus M. |
| Abstract: | Expanding solar energy production requires access to land; however, relying on productive farmland raises concerns about competing with food production. Identifying alternative sites, such as Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands or marginal lands, offers an alternative sustainable solution. Yet, little is known about how much compensation landowners require to lease such lands for small-scale solar installations. This study examines the determinants of farmers' willingness to accept (WTA) payments for solar leases on CRP or marginal lands in the U.S. Southern Great Plains. Using survey data and a heteroskedastic interval regression model, results show a mean WTA of $665 per acre per year, with significant heterogeneity across states and farmer characteristics. Rangeland area and livestock ownership increase WTA, while CRP participation lowers it. Higher pastureland rental rates also significantly reduce WTA, and state fixed effects indicate notably lower WTA in Colorado and New Mexico. Perceptions of renewable technologies and land-use intensity further shape compensation demands. These findings offer guidance for policymakers and solar developers in structuring lease offers tailored to land type, regional context, and market conditions. |
| Keywords: | Resource /Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404750 |
| By: | Lippi, Francesco; Moracci, Elia |
| Abstract: | We use a large granular dataset to analyze the households’ choice between cash and card payments. Empirically, both the size of the transaction and the amount of cash on hand emerge as significant covariates of the payment choice. We unveil a novel interaction between these two variables: the critical size for a card purchase depends on the amount of cash on hand. We present a tractable model of payment choices, featuring non-universal acceptance of cards by merchants, and a random expenditure flow. The model generates a precautionary motive for holding a cash buffer: cards are used to avoid “running out of cash†, accounting for the interaction discussed before. We employ a calibrated version of the model to quantify the benefits of card ownership, the welfare costs of imperfect card acceptance by merchants, and to identify conditions under which a cashless economy emerges. |
| JEL: | E41 |
| Date: | 2024–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19752 |
| By: | Gill, David (Purdue University); Qiao, Zhongheng (Purdue University) |
| Abstract: | Workers and organizations routinely choose the complexity of tasks that they undertake. We study how cognitive ability and overconfidence shape this choice of task complexity, both theoretically and experimentally. Consistent with our model, we find that more cognitively able individuals choose more complex tasks. Conditional on cognitive ability, we find that more overconfident individuals also choose more complex tasks. About 80% of subjects pick their payoff-maximizing task, and higher cognitive ability predicts more efficient choices of task complexity. But errors are strikingly one-sided: nearly all who fail to choose optimally pick tasks that are too complex. Our findings suggest that organizations should pair task menus and incentives for choosing more complex tasks with information and feedback that help workers assess their ability and probability of success. This preserves the benefits of self-selection while reducing costly overreach. |
| Keywords: | cognitive ability, complexity, task choice, choice efficiency, overconfidence, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D03 D83 D91 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18834 |
| By: | Davide Contu; Chiara Sotis; Giles Atkinson; Vincent Chung; Damien Dussaux; Stavros Georgiou; Susana Mourato; Irène Hu |
| Abstract: | Exposure to chemicals has been shown to cause skin sensitisation, leading to chronic conditions such as allergic contact dermatitis. Beyond physical symptoms, skin sensitisation can also reduce one’s quality of life, impair productivity and cause psychological distress. Despite its prevalence, information on the value that the public places on avoiding chemical-induced skin sensitisation remains limited. To fill this gap, the present paper details a stated preference survey estimating individuals’ willingness-to-pay to avoid the frequency, severity and visibility of skin flare-ups in nine countries (Canada, Denmark, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States). It also explores how other socio-economic factors such as age, gender and income affect the valuation of skin sensitisation. This work is part of a series of large-scale studies resulting from the Surveys on Willingness-to-Pay to Avoid Negative Chemicals-Related Health Effects project that intends to establish internationally comparable values for the willingness-to-pay to avoid negative health effects due to exposure to chemicals. The results from this paper are expected to be widely applicable in analyses assessing the value of reduced skin sensitisation in a range of chemical and environmental contexts. |
| Keywords: | chemicals regulation, economic valuation, health risk, health valuation, monetised benefits, morbidity valuation, non-market valuation, skin sensitisation, stated preferences, surveys, value of a statistical case, willingness-to-pay |
| JEL: | D61 I18 J17 K32 Q51 Q53 Q58 |
| Date: | 2026–08–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:envaaa:277-en |