Testing the effectiveness of the oath script in reducing the hypothetical bias in the Contingent Valuation Method

摘要

The objective of the study is to investigate the effect of the oath script (HO) in an hypothetical Contingent Valuation survey in a Mediterranean country (e.g. Italy). Hence, there were conducted the CE surveys with three treatments: (1) CV without a cognitive task, (2) CV with a CT script, and (3) CV with a HO. The findings showed that the effectiveness of the HO script depends on the participants’ socio-demographic characteristics. For instance, it was found that the HO script could help to reduce the hypothetical bias for people who possess a high educational level in contrast with those people with low education and low income. Hence, the findings suggest that the oath script not only does not a guarantee the reduction of the hypothetical bias, but it also does not explain the mixed results found in the previous studies.