HYBRID CHOICE MODELLING ALLOWING FOR REFERENCE-DEPENDENT PREFERENCES: ESTIMATION AND VALIDATION FOR THE CASE OF ALTERNATIVE-FUEL VEHICLES

摘要

The recent literature has shown an increasing interest in modelling behaviours that depart from the standard model of rational choice, as typically used in discrete choice models. While these behavioural aspects may be present at the same time in a choice context, most research has studied only one effect at a time. The risk in studying these behavioural aspects separately is that their effects can be confounded or overstated. In this paper we focus on two of the most popular behavioural extensions of the classical choice framework: preference heterogeneity related to attitudes and reference-dependent preferences. We investigate how the two phenomena interact in a combined framework. We test our hybrid choice model that allows for reference-dependent preferences on a data set with choices among alternative-fuel vehicles. The models are validated using a large hold-out sample. Our results show that both effects are important to explain heterogeneity in choice behaviour and that they are not confounded in our application. Latent variables and eference-dependent preferences appear to explain different dimensions of choice.