On the Use of Honesty Priming Tasks to Mitigate Hypothetical Bias in Choice Experiments

Abstract

We test whether the use of an honesty priming task can help mitigate hypothetical bias in stated preference choice experiments (CE). Using a between-sample design, we conducted hypothetical and non-hypothetical choice experiments with seven treatments. Our results suggest that marginal willingness to pay estimates from hypothetical CE with an honesty priming task are not significantly different from marginal valuations from non-hypothetical CE. Values from both of these treatments are lower than those from three other hypothetical treatments, while values from the three non-hypothetical treatments are not significantly different from each other.