Experimental Design
The experiment is divided into three sub-experiments which we denote as parts 1-3. Morover, agents answer questions about other control variables (such as demographics).
In part 1, subjects will have to choose between two types of buses (Bus A and Bus B) to do a given trip. The information of each bus is presented in two columns, but each piece of information is hidden behind a box that has the title of the information contained in each of them. To see the information behind each box, the participants have to click in the corresponding box. There are boxes (pieces of information) about 4 attributes: estimated trip duration (in minutes), estimated emissions (in g of CO2), safety (in number of crimes in the bus) and price (in local currency). Regarding the safety information of Bus B, subjects will be randomized into different levels (+30%, +10%, -10%, -30% in the number of crimes committed on public transportation with respect to the average crime level in buses in their city), and the crime level of Bus A will always be equal to 'same number of crime of buses as the average in your city'. For groups +10% and +30% the price presented of Bus B will be 50% lower than the one of Bus A, and for groups -10% and -30% the price is 50% higher. We proced through the Gabor-Granger method to capture the indifference price between each transport mode.
In part 2, will face a choice between two options: an Uber ride at its usual local price, and an equivalent bus ride at its usual local price; we will present the same attributes as in part 1 The attributes will be presented in two columns, all at once (no need to click on boxes in this part). Moreover, subjects will be randomized between the same levels of bus safety as in part one: +30%, +10%, -10%, -30%. Then, participants will choose whether they would use the private or public transportation option. Following the Gabor-Granger method again, participants who choose public (private) transport will then face the same choice but with public transportation price X% higher (cheaper).
In part 3, we will randomly allocate the participants in one of three groups: two treatments and one control. In one of the treatments, we will present a newspaper article that suggests that the public transport in their city is safe and in the other treatment an article that suggests that it is not safe (and we present a 'neutral' or 'placebo' article the control group). Then, we will tell the participants to think that they are the policymakers of their city and that they have a budget of 120 thousand dollars to allocate between four policies: environmental, efficiency, price and safety. The agents then give their allocation choice and we are interested in studying whether being exposed to different newspaper articles (that aims to vary the safety perception in the public transport system of their city) changes the allocation of the budget.