Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: exploring the roles of the two selves in the WTP-WTA conundrum

• Main Authors: Cheng, Mark Jaychell U., Nuqui,, Bonvin G., Ong, James L., Soliven, Anthony U.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2011
• Subjects: Willingness to pay; Consumer behavior; Consumers > Attitudes; Economics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/11319
• Institution: De La Salle University

Renowned bodies of research such as Thaler's endowment effect have spurred a new branch of research involving distortions between the theoretical equality of WTP-WTA valuations. These studies have focused on a myriad of external triggers which exert influence over rational consumer behavior as defined in microeconomics. Another school of thought, particularly those of behavioral economists such as Kahneman, argue that such deviations from WTP-WTA equality are more of a function of inherent human valuation lapses than external triggers. After having conducted a series of experiments involving college undergraduate students, we used tests of equality to validate a behavioral facet of the classic WTP-WTA argument. Results show that only the particular combinations of ES-WTP, RS-WTA can produce the disparity between WTP-WTA data. Other combinations have proven to be statistically insignificant.