Time involvement and consumers' willingness to pay for information

Last registered on February 16, 2018

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Time involvement and consumers' willingness to pay for information

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0002697

Initial registration date

February 14, 2018

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

February 16, 2018, 1:58 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

United States of America

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Gnel Gabrielyan

Affiliation

Cornell University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

David Just

PI Affiliation

Cornell University

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2018-02-25

End date

2018-02-26

Keywords

Finance & Microfinance, Welfare

Additional Keywords

willingness to pay, information, time investment

JEL code(s)

C9, D01, D12

Secondary IDs

Abstract

This experiment will help to get a better understanding of how people value information. The research is to test whether people will pay for useless information and what kind of internal and external factors push them to do so. In this context, useless information is information that cannot beneficially inform future decisions. This study identifies the impact of effort investment in decision-making process and consumers' willingness to pay for the information.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Gabrielyan, Gnel and David Just. 2018. "Time involvement and consumers' willingness to pay for information." AEA RCT Registry. February 16. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2697-1.0

Former Citation

Gabrielyan, Gnel and David Just. 2018. "Time involvement and consumers' willingness to pay for information." AEA RCT Registry. February 16. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2697/history/25893

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2018-02-25

Intervention End Date

2018-02-26

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The willingness to pay to know ex post whether they guessed correctly,

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Indicators of effort

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Indicators of effort, include both the availability of detailed information about the horses and self reported use of variable information in making their guess

Experimental Design

After choosing the winner at each session participants will revealing their willingness to pay. After all the sessions are done we will randomly select one of the sessions and play Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction. In this auction, participants give a bid of a whole number, which represents the price they are willing to give in order to know the result of this round. The bid is compared to a price determined by a random number generator. If the their bid is greater than or equal to the price, he or she pays the price given by the number generator and will know the result at the end of session.

Experimental Design Details

After 20 sessions of guessing winners of horse races, we will inform participants of how much they have won based on one randomly selected race. After each selection is made, we will use a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction to elicit willingness to pay to know the outcome of that individual race, with the information being provided only after all selections have been made. In this auction, participants give a bid of a whole number, which represents the price they are willing to give in order to know the result of this round. The bid is compared to a price determined by a random number generator. If their bid is greater than or equal to the price, he or she pays the price given by the number generator and will know the result at the end of session.

Participants will be placed in two treatments. The first will provide only information about the number and name of the horse. The second will additionally provide information on the name and the age of the horse, jockeys' names and their weight, trainers' and owners' names, and the win odds.

Randomization Method

Treatment randomization is done at each session by Qualtrics (survey software).

Randomization Unit

Randomization will be done for each session for each individual.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

150 participants with 20 sessions each

Sample size: planned number of observations

3000

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

1500 each treatment (assuming uniform distribution)

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

This study has 80.0% power to detect an effect size of E = S * E/S = 0.027. Given the following information alpha - 0.5 beta - .2 St.Dev - 0.26 (based on pilot info) N1 - 1500 N2 - 1500

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB