Stated Preference Data Research Articles

The effect of HIV prevention products on incentives to supply condomless commercial sex among female sex workers in South Africa.

Evidence suggests that economic factors play an important role in commercial sex work, in particular that condomless sex commands a price premium relative to condom‐protected sex. This paper explores whether the use of a new HIV prevention product, with 100% efficacy but modeled after pre‐exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), could change the price and quantity of condomless commercial sex supplied. We collected stated preference data from 122 HIV‐negative female sex workers in urban South Africa, using a repeated choice experiment to simulate the impact of using PrEP on choices. Results suggest that the price premium for condomless sex would decrease by 73% with PrEP use and the quantity of condomless sex is predicted to increase by a factor of 2.27. Act price does not significantly affect choices without protection but strongly influences choices under full HIV protection. The utility offered by condoms reduces by around 15% under PrEP use. Because new HIV prevention products do not protect against other STIs or pregnancy, the unintended consequences of introducing HIV prevention products should be closely monitored, whereas users should not face stigma or blame for reacting rationally to exogenous changes to market conditions.

Homebuyers’ preferences concerning installed photovoltaic systems

Purpose This paper aims to report on homebuyers’ preferences and willingness to pay for installed home photovoltaic systems. Their influence on the market position of a dwelling is relatively unknown. Considering that expected lifespan of photovoltaic systems is at least 25 years, it is likely that many dwellings with a photovoltaic system will enter the housing market. Design/methodology/approach Few houses with installed photovoltaic systems have been sold in the market to date. Lack of real market data imposes a method based on the stated preference data. Therefore, the general preferences toward photovoltaic systems are determined by a discrete choice model based on responses of 227 homebuyers in the Eindhoven region, The Netherlands. Further, the model estimates were used to assess the indirect willingness to pay for home photovoltaic systems. This initial willingness to pay is further reassessed with the direct willingness to pay collected in an open-ended questionnaire format. Findings Results of the model show that the homebuyers’ preferences for home photovoltaic systems are large and significant. In addition to general preferences, this article reports on the taste heterogeneity carried out by separating observations based on the respondents’ characteristics. For example, photovoltaic systems are more appealing to homebuyers in more urban or central neighbourhoods. Further, the results of the direct survey lead to the conclusion that people are probably willing to pay close to the replacement value of the system and only 22 per cent of all respondents did not want to pay anything for the installed photovoltaic system. Research limitations/implications These findings are exploratory and they raise a number of questions for further investigations, such as those regarding the real estate value of the installed photovoltaic systems. The reported findings must be regarded as local, thus further research is necessary to understand the impact on European housing markets. Practical implications Preferences and willingness to pay for home photovoltaic systems can provide a variety of economic, social and political recommendations to different interested parties such as homeowners, buyers, realtors, retailers, energy companies and governments. For instance, a homeowner would like to know what would be the effect of a photovoltaic system on the housing market. Originality/value As per the knowledge of authors, this is the first paper to estimate the impact of an installed photovoltaic system on housing choice, measured by stated choice data in the local housing market. It expands the existing body of knowledge for increasingly important issues of valuing and measuring preferences for photovoltaic systems installed on dwellings.

Homeowner acceptance of voluntary property acquisition offers

Property acquisition programs are an important part of government mitigation efforts. Since they are voluntary, understanding how property owners make the decision to accept an offer is critical in determining how best to design such programs and assess their likely success. This paper uses logistic regression analysis of stated preference data collected through a phone survey of residents of Eastern North Carolina to identify the attributes of the property, the homeowner, and the homeowner's attachment to the community that influence the property acquisition decision. The results provide evidence that increased probability of acquisition offer acceptance is associated with location in a floodplain, shorter expected future tenure in the home, having experienced more past hurricanes, less feeling of control, and being White. Additional research is needed to better predict which homeowners will accept a specified offer and overall program participation rates.

In-store or online shopping of search and experience goods: A hybrid choice approach

This paper aims at explaining the choice between online and in-store shopping for typical search and experience goods (standard electronic appliances and groceries) within an artificial experimental setting assuming no privately owned cars. We present the first alternative-specific integrated choice and latent variable (ICLV) model using stated preference data in the field of shopping behavior research, explicitly asking respondents to trade-off attributes specific to each shopping channel.Respondents with pro-online shopping attitudes have a higher shopping cost sensitivity, which can be explained by the expanded choice set when effectively considering both purchasing channels. They also exhibit a higher choice probability of online shopping for groceries compared to electronic appliances, given the nature of experience goods being preferably purchased in-store, while the pleasure of shopping shows no substantial effect on choice behavior.Results reveal a user profile of pro-online shoppers that is mainly characterized by a technology-oriented generation of younger and well-educated men. Also, given the relatively high value of travel time compared to the value of delivery time, we show that especially for electronic appliances, avoiding a shopping trip produces more benefits than waiting for the delivery of ordered products.

Receiver benefits and strategic use of call externalities in mobile telephony markets

Recent models of network competition demonstrate the incentives for incumbent firms to reduce receiver benefits in an entrant's network through excessive off-net pricing. Theoretical reasoning behind the role of call externalities in limiting the market share of smaller networks assumes that receiving a call contributes to consumer utility. This paper tests this critical assumption with stated-preference data elicited from subscribers of mobile telephony in Poland. Our findings show that receiver benefits are a significant driver of mobile operator choice. Thus by reducing the volume of outgoing calls, larger networks can limit customer base growth of smaller rivals. Regulatory options for mitigating this effect are discussed. The size of market share gained by introducing a common off-net markup is low: 1.7–2.8% depending on the market segment. However under symmetric termination rates, an entrant would increase its market share by 6.1–8.5% at the expense of incumbents. In case of Poland, this would shorten the catch-up period from eight to five years.

A generalized dynamic discrete choice model for green vehicle adoption

Much is happening in the automotive industry and new models are in the market or are expected to be available soon. At the same time, environmental awareness, new regulations for increased fuel efficiency, and the need to diminish greenhouse gas emissions make small vehicles and alternative fuel vehicles more competitive. As a consequence, vehicle characteristics and consumer decisions will change rapidly in the short and medium run. Accounting for the dynamic of the problem is important to correctly forecast green vehicle acceptance and to evaluate eco-friendly policies. This paper proposes a generalized dynamic discrete choice approach that models purchase behavior and forecasts future preferences in a finite time horizon setting. The framework allows one-time purchases, repeated purchases, univariate and multivariate diffusion processes that capture the evolution of vehicle characteristics and dynamics in the market conditions. The models proposed are estimated using stated preference data collected in Maryland. Results show that the formulation with repeated purchases successfully captures changes in the market shares, and that the multivariate diffusion process adopted to model the evolution of fuel prices further improves both model fit and the ability to recover peaks in demand. The estimated coefficients have been applied to test different policy scenarios, including changes in fuel prices, vehicle purchase prices, and improvements of car characteristics. These policies have a high impact on the adoption of electric cars and on their diffusion in the marketplace.

Heterogeneous preferences of green vehicles by vehicle size: Analysis of Seoul case

ABSTRACTAlthough there are several policies for promoting green vehicles, green vehicles have yet to penetrate the market to the extent desired. To attain the goal, a complete understanding of consumers’ preferences of green vehicles is essential. This paper proposes and specifies the fuel-type choice models among conventional gasoline vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and electric vehicles by vehicle size using the stated preferences data collected in Seoul, Korea. The results highlight the need to accommodate the correlation between similar alternatives and the unobserved heterogeneity within the context of choosing a green vehicle. The choice probabilities of green vehicles are affected by the relative impacts of the vehicles’ attributes and socio-demographic variables, and both of these variables are affected by the sizes of the vehicles. For compact size and mid-size vehicles, the effects of operating costs were less than those of purchase prices; however, for the subcompact vehicles, the effects of operating cost were greater than those of purchase price. The parameter of operating costs was not statistically significant in the full-size model. With respect to electric vehicles, the availability of fuel stations would be more important in Seoul than in the U.S. These results can also be useful for policy makers in that they provide information about the impact of green vehicles’ attributes on the choice probabilities of green vehicles.

Assessing the importance of housing, accessibility, and transportation characteristics on stated neighbourhood preference

ABSTRACTBeyond socioeconomic circumstance, residential location decisions are also predicated on many housing, transportation, and accessibility characteristics. Consequently, greater insight is needed on how these myriad characteristics are valued by individuals and connected to their neighbourhood preference to inform planners and decision makers concerned with urban growth patterns. Unfortunately, forecasting methods commonly lack the specificity needed to recognize how residential environment preferences influence future housing, land use, and transportation decisions. Often, these policy instruments rely exclusively on a set of observed socioeconomic characteristics to measure heterogeneity in revealed location decisions. Using stated preference data collected in Portland, Oregon, this study employed structural equation modelling techniques to examine the influence of these socioeconomic measures and latent constructs of rated single-family dwelling and non-automotive access importance on stated neighbourhood preference. Our study's findings suggest the importance placed on certain bundles of housing, transportation, and accessibility attributes, and not socioeconomic circumstance, directly affected neighbourhood preference.

Zero-truncated panel Poisson mixture models: Estimating the impact on tourism benefits in Fukushima Prefecture

This study proposes an estimation approach to panel count data, truncated at zero, in order to apply a contingent behavior travel cost method to revealed and stated preference data collected via a web-based survey. We develop zero-truncated panel Poisson mixture models by focusing on respondents who visited a site. In addition, we introduce an inverse Gaussian distribution to unobserved individual heterogeneity as an alternative to a popular gamma distribution, making it possible to capture effectively the long tail typically observed in trip data. We apply the proposed method to estimate the impact on tourism benefits in Fukushima Prefecture as a result of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No. 1 accident.

Pooling stated and revealed preference data in the presence of RP endogeneity

Pooled discrete choice models combine revealed preference (RP) data and stated preference (SP) data to exploit advantages of each. SP data is often treated with suspicion because consumers may respond differently in a hypothetical survey context than they do in the marketplace. However, models built on RP data can suffer from endogeneity bias when attributes that drive consumer choices are unobserved by the modeler and correlated with observed variables. Using a synthetic data experiment, we test the performance of pooled RP–SP models in recovering the preference parameters that generated the market data under conditions that choice modelers are likely to face, including (1) when there is potential for endogeneity problems in the RP data, such as omitted variable bias, and (2) when consumer willingness to pay for attributes may differ from the survey context to the market context. We identify situations where pooling RP and SP data does and does not mitigate each data source’s respective weaknesses. We also show that the likelihood ratio test, which has been widely used to determine whether pooling is statistically justifiable, (1) can fail to identify the case where SP context preference differences and RP endogeneity bias shift the parameter estimates of both models in the same direction and magnitude and (2) is unreliable when the product attributes are fixed within a small number of choice sets, which is typical of automotive RP data. Our findings offer new insights into when pooling data sources may or may not be advisable for accurately estimating market preference parameters, including consideration of the conditions and context under which the data were generated as well as the relative balance of information between data sources.

Externalities and House Prices: A Stated Preferences Approach

Objective: In the article, we address the nexus between neighbourhood externalities and house prices using stated preference data. The impact of neighbourhood amenities generating positive externalities and disamenities generating negative externalities on property prices has been studied since the 1970s. Most of the studies to date applied the hedonic methodology and assumed that the effect is homogeneous. The article aims to address the potential heterogeneity of housebuyers’ preferences. Research Design & Methods: The article uses logistic regression models on stated preference data regarding the sensitivity to three spatial amenities (public transit, urban green area, and retail and services) and three spatial disamenities (railway line, noisy road, petrol station). The dataset comes from six editions of the survey on housing demand and preferences in Krakow conducted annually from 2012 to 2017. Findings: Empirical results show the relation between household lifecycle and household wealth and willingness-to-pay for spatial amenities and willingness-to-accept spatial disamenities. We did not observe the difference in preferences dependent on the purchase motive. Implications & Recommendations: The results can be interesting for planners and policymakers, but also in the business environment in case of residential development. Contribution & Value Added: The article fills the gap in the economic literature on factors affecting housebuyers’ sensitivity to certain positive and negative externalities that manifest in stated willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept.

Travel mode choice preferences of urban commuters in Kuching City, Malaysia based on stated preference data

One aspect of Kuching City that has not progressed in tandem with the rest of the city is the public transport system, which is relatively old and almost non-existent. Transport and City planners seem to be at their wit’s end in coming up with satisfactory solutions to Kuching’s public transportation woes. In current situation, many proposals, but none have proven workable. As a result, representative buses remain a rare sight on Kuching city’s roads. To achieve a sustainable public transport industry, the old buses need to be regenerated and replaced with modern buses. The objectives of the intended study are to explore the consumer’s travel behaviour by employing mode choice modelling. Consequently, a study was conducted in Kuching City Area by using stated preference technique, analysed and compiled by using SPSS.17 multiple linear regressions analysis. In this context, discrete choice analysis was used to examine the relationship between independent variables (travel time, waiting time, fares and comfort) and dependent variables (choice of respondent whether to consume old bus or choose new bus services). A total of 2000 respondents were interviewed. The findings showed that for the trips purpose, fares and comfortability were the primary factors that reflected the decision or behaviour of the respondents asked. It was discovered that there is a significant relationship between the choice of the respondents and comfortability. It also appeared that longer travel time did not affect for the traveler’s choice at this stage. Hence, the study suggests that the local authority and the bus operators should establish a “quality partnership” and working together in order to come out with a much better and appropriate transport policy and schemes for the existing public transportation systems, especially bus services.

Study on Premium Rent of Refurbished Apartments Based on Bayesian Modelling Using Stated Preference Data of the Tenants

Study on Premium Rent of Refurbished Apartments Based on Bayesian Modelling Using Stated Preference Data of the Tenants

Baseline risk and marginal willingness to pay for health risk reduction

Empirical results presented in this paper suggest that parents’ marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for a reduction in morbidity risk from heart disease is inversely related to baseline risk (i.e., the amount of risk initially faced) both for themselves and for their children. For instance, a 40% reduction from the mean of baseline risk results in an increase in MWTP by 70% or more. Thus, estimates of monetary benefits of public programs to reduce heart disease risk would be understated if the standard practice is followed of evaluating MWTP at initial risk levels and then multiplying this value by the number of cases avoided. Estimates are supported by: (1) unique quantitative information on perceptions of the risk of getting heart disease that allow baseline risk to be defined at an individual level and (2) improved econometric procedures to control for well-known difficulties associated with stated preference data.

Comparing stated and realized preferences for shade‐grown vs. conventionally grown coffee

AbstractWe used both stated preference and revealed preference data to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for shade‐grown coffee as compared with conventionally grown coffee. Stated preference data was collected using contingent valuation studies. Revealed preference data came from an experiment where all survey participants received a personally identifiable voucher redeemable for a free bakery item when the holder purchased a coffee. We compared estimates of mean and median WTP a price premium for shade‐grown coffee from stated preference data with similar estimates from revealed preference data. We used a logit model to evaluate the effect of explanatory variables (measures of environmental attitudes, personal norms for pro‐environmental behaviour and demographic variables) on respondents’ WTP a price premium for shade grown coffee. Model parameters were estimated using the maximum likelihood approach. Respondents with higher scores on measures of environmental attitudes and personal norms for pro‐environmental behaviour were, on average, willing to pay more for shade‐grown coffee. While this paper examined a specific case, purchase of shade‐grown coffee, our results confirmed that stated environmental concern was a good predictor of pro‐environmental behaviour. We found that mean and median WTP estimates from stated preference methods were higher, but not significantly different than mean and median WTP estimates from actual purchases, indicating convergent validity between stated and realized preference methods. The majority of individuals both stated WTP a price premium and purchased shade‐grown coffee at a price premium. We did, however notice some interesting behaviour at the individual level where stated preferences under‐predicted realized preferences at low price‐premia and over‐predicted realized preferences at high price premia.

Estimating policy values for in-vehicle comfort and crowding reduction in local public transport☆

This study estimates policy values for comfort, defined as getting a seat, and crowding reduction on board local public transport in Sweden. We use stated-preference (SP) data and present crowding as a mode-neutral crowding level among the standing travelers depicted in images presented to the respondents. We analyze whether there are differences in the willingness to pay (WTP) for comfort and crowding reduction among the three largest urban areas in Sweden. In general, we find no significantly different preferences for sitting and crowding reduction among the three urban areas. Still, the point estimates differ in some cases, indicating that there may be differences across the three urban areas, but the estimates have large confidence intervals that overlap each other. Also, these differences are likely to have resulted from mode-share differences and not from differences in preferences across the urban areas. Some significant differences are found among the modes, for example, a higher disutility of standing on a bus versus on a tram. These mode-specific estimates can be used as policy values for a given tram line or metro line. Nevertheless, we also pooled the data suggesting average WTP estimates for sitting and crowding reductions that can be used for national cost–benefit analysis policy in all large urban areas in Sweden where crowding on local public transport occurs. Importantly, analysis of heterogeneity and SP-design differences shows that the results are in line with empirical knowledge of the value of travel time savings.

Joint parental school choice: Exploring the influence of individual preferences of husbands and wives

The objective of this paper is to study school choice as a deliberate joint parental decision. This decision is affected by the underlying preferences of the husband and wife. We use survey data from a sample of parents in the metropolitan area of Bilbao (Spain) to estimate a bargaining discrete choice model. The collected data set contains hypothetical school choices gathered in the form of a typical discrete choice experiment (stated preferences) and the actual school choice (revealed preferences). Stated preference data are obtained separately for husbands and wives, but the revealed preference choice is taken jointly. Our findings show, firstly, that the husband's and wife's stated preferences regarding school choice do not differ markedly. Secondly, the results obtained for the revealed preferences deviate from the stated preferences for some school characteristics. Finally, we find that neither the husband's nor the wife's preferences prevail in the actual joint school choice decision.

O efeito da variabilidade do tempo de viagem no modal aéreo

A análise da variabilidade do tempo de viagem está ganhando interesse entre os pes­quisadores e planejadores. Este trabalho avalia o comportamento dos usuários do transporte aéreo diante da presença da variabilidade de tempo de viagem. Especifica­mente, determina o comportamento dos usuários do transporte aéreo em relação a esta variabilidade, propensos, neutros ou avessos; identifica e caracteriza esta variabi­lidade na escolha do voo e compara o impacto das diferentes características envolvi­das. Dados de preferência declarada foram coletados e modelos de escolha discreta estimados para modelar o comportamento dos usuários. Os resultados obtidos mos­traram que os usuários do transporte aéreo são avessos à variabilidade do tempo de viagem. A comparação entre os impactos das variáveis mostrou que valorizam princi­palmente o custo da passagem na escolha do voo, seguido da existência de uma escala no deslocamento entre origem e destino, e por último o tempo e variabilidade do tempo de viagem.

Provision of information about newborn screening antenatally: a sequential exploratory mixed-methods project.

Participation in the UK Newborn Bloodspot Screening Programme (NBSP) requires parental consent but concerns exist about whether or not this happens in practice and the best methods and timing to obtain consent at reasonable cost. To collate all possible modes of prescreening communication and consent for newborn (neonatal) screening (NBS); examine midwives', screening professionals' and users' views about the feasibility, efficiency and impact on understanding of each; measure midwives' and parents' preferences for information provision; and identify key drivers of cost-effectiveness for alternative modes of information provision. Six study designs were used: (1) realist review - to generate alternative communication and consent models; (2) qualitative interviews with parents and health professionals - to examine the implications of current practice for understanding and views on alternative models; (3) survey and observation of midwives - to establish current costs; (4) stated preference surveys with midwives, parents and potential future parents - to establish preferences for information provision; (5) economic analysis - to identify cost-effectiveness drivers of alternative models; and (6) stakeholder validation focus groups and interviews - to examine the acceptability, views and broader impact of alternative communication and consent models. Providers and users of NBS in England. Study 2: 45 parents and 37 health professionals; study 3: 22 midwives and eight observations; study 4: 705 adults aged 18-45 years and 134 midwives; and study 6: 12 health-care professionals and five parents. The realist review identified low parental knowledge and evidence of coercive consent practices. Interview, focus group and stated preference data suggested a preference for full information, with some valuing this more than choice. Health professionals preferred informed choice models but parents and health professionals queried whether or not current consent was fully informed. Barriers to using leaflets effectively were highlighted. All studies indicated that a 'personalised' approach to NBS communication, allowing parents to select the mode and level of information suited to their learning needs, could have added value. A personalised approach should rely on midwife communication and should occur in the third trimester. Overall awareness was identified as requiring improvement. Starting NBS communication by alerting parents that they have a choice to make and telling them that samples could be stored are both likely to enhance engagement. The methods of information provision and maternal anxiety causing additional visits to health-care professionals were the drivers of relative cost-effectiveness. Lack of data to populate an economic analysis, confirmed by value of information analysis, indicated a need for further research. There are some limitations with regard to the range of participants used in studies 2 and 3 and so caution should be exercised when interpreting some of the results. This project highlighted the importance of focusing on information receipt and identified key communication barriers. Health professionals strongly preferred informed consent, which parents endorsed if they were made aware of sample storage. Uniform models of information provision were perceived as ineffective. A choice of information provision was supported by health professionals and parents, which both enhances cost-effectiveness and improves engagement, understanding and the validity of consent. Remaining uncertainties suggest that more research is needed before new communication modes are introduced into practice. Future research should measure the impact of the suggested practice changes (informing in third trimester, information toolkits, changed role of midwife). Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN70227207. This project was funded by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 21, No. 55. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.

A latent class model of residential choice behaviour and ethnic segregation preferences

The nature of ethnic residential clustering involves diverse population segments which through their location decisions influence the spatial patterns of ethnic settlements. While residential location is in part determined by outside constraints, choice plays a role too, making the study of preferences an important research topic. Along with differences in socio-economic characteristics, literature often emphasizes the role of unobserved (behavioural) elements in the formation of preferences for ethnic neighbourhood composition. This paper tests the potential of latent class choice models to examine both observed and unobserved heterogeneity in residential choices across ethnic groups. The empirical example is estimated on stated preferences data from Lugano, Switzerland. The results indicate different ethnic attributes as key choice drivers for households belonging to three latent classes, where the origin of households is the best predictor of class membership. Swiss citizens are mainly concerned about high shares of foreigners, advantaged foreigners favour their co-nationals, while disadvantaged foreigners hold both of such preferences.