Comparing the willingness to pay through three elicitation mechanisms: An experimental evidence for organic egg product

This study is the first attempt to elicit individual willingness to pay (WTP) for varying attributes of a specific food product, the organic egg, using three elicitation methods, namely, a real choice experiment (RCE), the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism, and a RCE by using the BDM mechanism (RCE-BDM). The experimental setting allows for a comparison of these three methods. The mixed logit models in WTP space for the choice data and the random-effects Tobit model for the BDM data are used for the analyses. The results show that the individuals' WTP varies across elicitation methods. More specifically, the WTP of the RCE is lower than the WTP of the BDM experiment, and mixed results have been found while comparing the WTP of the RCE-BDM experiment and WTP of the BDM experiment. Lastly, individuals are willing to pay a premium for health, environment-friendly, and animal welfare attributes for all three elicitation methods: the health attribute's premium having the highest value followed by those of animal welfare and environment- friendliness. The results have not changed with information treatment indicating robustness of the findings. [EconLit Citations: C91, C35, D12].

Automated summary

This study investigates individual willingness to pay for various attributes of organic eggs using three different elicitation methods, revealing differences in WTP across methods, with the health attribute premium being the highest.