Economic Preferences or Attitude Expressions? An Analysis of Dollar Responses to Public Issues

Daniel Kahneman*, Ilana Ritov, David Schkade

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

413 Scopus citations

Abstract

Participants in contingent valuation surveys and jurors setting punitive damages in civil trials provide answers denominated in dollars. These answers are better understood as expressions of attitudes than as indications of economic preferences. Well-established characteristics of attitudes and of the core process of affective valuation explain several robust features of dollar responses: high correlations with other measures of attractiveness or aversiveness, insensitivity to scope, preference reversals, and the high variability of dollar responses relative to other measures of the same attitude.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)203-235
Number of pages33
JournalJournal of Risk and Uncertainty
Volume19
Issue number1-3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1999

Keywords

  • Attitudes
  • Contingent valuation
  • Preferences
  • Psychology and economics
  • Utility assessment

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