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Scope insensitivity in health risk reduction studies: A comparison of choice experiments and the contingent valuation method for valuing safer food

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Abstract

Scope insensitivity and embedding are fundamental concerns in contingent valuation studies for health risk reductions. Recently, choice experiments have increasingly been used to obtain contingent willingness to pay (WTP) estimates. We juxtapose the WTP estimates of a choice experiment (CE) to those of the contingent valuation method (CVM) for different health risk reductions and compare them in the extent of scope insensitivity and embedding. WTP using CVM is scope sensitive for single health risks, but embedding is observed for multiple disease risks. In contrast, WTP based on the CE is highly scope sensitive and convex in risk reduction levels.

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Notes

  1. The equality of WTP estimated by CVM and CE were compared using the convolutions approach. By using the complete combinatorial of the two WTP distributions (Poe et al. 2005) obtained in nonparametric bootstraps of N = 500, the lower bound of the 90% confidence interval of the difference is given by: 0.392 (CVMSa40, Ca0 = CESa40, Ca0), 3.803 (CVMSa80, Ca0 = CESa80, Ca0), 0.990 (CVMSa0, Ca40 = CESa0, Ca40), 0.601 (CVMSa0,Ca80 = CESa0, Ca80), −0.511 (CVMSa40, Ca40 = CESa40, Ca40), 0.848 (CVMSa80, Ca40 = CESa80, Ca40), 0.301 (CVMSa40, Ca80 = CESa40, Ca80), and 3.065 (CVMSa80, Ca80 = CESa80, Ca80). Zero is included in the confidence interval only for the case CVMSa40, Ca40 = CESa40, Ca40 where equality of the WTP distributions can hence not be rejected.

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Acknowledgement

We are grateful for the financial support by the foundations “Stiftung Goldener Zuckerhut” and the “H. Wilhelm Schaumann Stiftung” (both Germany) and by the State Government of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. We thank Pierre Dehez and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors.

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  1. Department of Food Economics and Consumption Studies, University of Kiel, Olshausenstrasse 40, D–24098, Kiel, Germany

    Isabell Goldberg & Jutta Roosen

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  1. Isabell Goldberg
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Correspondence to Jutta Roosen.

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Goldberg, I., Roosen, J. Scope insensitivity in health risk reduction studies: A comparison of choice experiments and the contingent valuation method for valuing safer food. J Risk Uncertainty 34, 123–144 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11166-007-9006-9

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