Hypothetical question modes and real willingness to pay

In the literature there are many, more or less well founded, reasons for favoring dichotomous choice over any other question modes that exist. One are that merits closer attention is which hypothetical question mode best approximates a real willingness to pay. In this paper a hypothetical dichotomous choice question is compared to a hypothetical open-ended question, and these are then compared to responses from a real valuation institution. This is done through controlled economic experiments using a private good. Contrary to most earlier studies, no difference between the mio hypothetical question formats is found. The results may be regarded as support of the survey technique. (C) 1997 Academic Press.