| dc.description.abstract | Hypothetical bias is one of the main issues bedeviling the field of nonmarket valuation. The
general criticism is that survey responses reflect how people would like to behave, rather than how
they actually behave. In our study of climate change and emissions reductions, we took advantage of
the increasing bulk of evidence from psychology and economics that addresses the effects of making
promises, in order to investigate the effect of an oath script in a contingent valuation survey. The
survey was conducted in Sweden and China, and its results indicate that an oath script has significant
effects on respondent behavior in answering willingness-to-pay (WTP) questions, some of which vary
by country. In both countries, the share of zero WTP responses and extremely high WTP responses
decreases when an oath script is used, which also results in lower variance. In China, the oath script
also reduces the average WTP, cutting it by half in certain instances. We also found that the oath
script has different impacts on various respondent groups. For example, without the oath script,
Communist party members in China are more likely than others to have a positive WTP for emissions
reductions, but with the oath script, there is no longer any difference between the groups. | sv |
