Impact of unimportant attributes in stated choice surveys

Abstract

Despite growing interest in the notion that respondents in stated choice surveys may make their decisions on the basis of only a subset of the presented attributes, the impact of any unimportant attributes on the estimates of other valuations is somewhat unclear. This paper presents evidence from a two stage survey where the second stage eliminates attributes deemed unimportant in the first stage. Our analysis shows no evidence of systematic differences between the results of the two stages. This leads to the conclusion that, up to a point where respondent burden may become an issue, analysts should include all attributes that may be relevant, and allow the respondent to filter out those that play no role.