Discrete choice experiments have the advantage that they can study preferences in health care where revealed preference data is not readily available. However, as a substitute for actual observed market led data, the experimental set-up for hypothetical situations must mimic the circumstances...

Individuals' rationality has been a key issue long debated in Economics. While normative theories establish the way 'rational' consumers should behave, many empirical studies have documented numerous systematic violations of normative principles. This has led some to question the validity of...

Lancsar and Savage argue that current methods of deriving welfare estimates, using discrete choice experiments, are inconsistent with random utility and welfare theory. In this paper I show that this not the case. The general formula proposed by Small and Rosen for estimating welfare, which...

In a recent paper in this journal, Andrew Lloyd reviewed some potential threats to the estimation of health care benefits in monetary terms. Particular emphasis was placed on the extent to which the use of non-compensatory heuristics may distort the results. Although it is useful to be reminded...

Stated preference methods assume respondents' preferences are consistent with utility theory, but many empirical studies report evidence of preferences that violate utility theory. This evidence is often derived from quantitative tests that occur naturally within, or are added to, stated...

Conjoint analysis is a technique relatively new to the evaluation of health care services in the UK. The technique uses data generated from questionnaires. This paper addresses the issue of response-ordering effects that may result from the ordering of dimensions of benefit within a question....