Experimental Design
Our design is a randomized intervention embedded within a survey. Eligibility to participate in the survey includes: participant being between 25 and 75 years old, residing in the US, and personal income above $40,000. Participants are recruited through Prolific.
The experiment consists of three parts.
In Part 1, participants are shown images of three randomly selected homes that were listed for sale in the US (from a set of eight homes) with within-subject variation in the staging status of the homes - home is without furniture and decor (T1), home is with furniture but no decor (T2), and home is with furniture and decor (T3). Participants see five images for each home - the exterior, the kitchen, the living, dining and master bedroom. The latter three images of the homes are subject to the treatment variation. For each home, participants report their hypothetical willingness-to-pay, and also answer some questions about their perceptions of these homes.
In Part 2A, the participants are shown the same three homes as in Part 1, and guess the selling price and days on the market for each home. Their response is incentivized by rewarding them for an accurate prediction.
In Part 2B, all participants are randomly shown one version, either furnished or unfurnished, of the same bedroom from a home they have not seen in earlier parts of the experiment. Their task is to estimate the room’s dimensions (width and length). Accurate guesses are incentivized through a reward system.
In Part 3, the participants are shown two new homes, and have to hypothetically select one home they wish to live in. Participants are assigned randomly to one of three treatment arms - both homes are without furniture and decor (B1), the left home is without furniture and decor while the right home is with furniture and decor (B2), the left home is with furniture and decor while the right home is without furniture and decor (B3). When shown with furnishings, the two homes use the same set of furniture and decor.