불확실성 하에서 조건부가치평가방법을 이용한 신상품에 대한 지불용의액 추정

Abstract

One would face uncertainty of how much gains could be actually obtained from a new product which has never been provided yet. There are many well-known uncertain factors that can and do influence an individual’s valuation. Since such uncertainty would not be removed until the good is actually consumed, a consumer usually faces a risk of getting less gain from the product than expected when making a purchasing decision of a new product. In this paper, the Risk Answering Mechanism (RAM) is introduced and compared with the Traditional Answering Mechanism (TAM) from the viewpoint of purchasing decision mechanism. The TAM assumes that consumers compare their true subjective WTP with the bidding price simply, deciding to purchase if the former is greater than the latter and not to purchase otherwise. Therefore, unless a consumer knows his or her WTP exactly as a single value, the TAM is doubted as a proper purchasing mechanism. Contrarily, the RAM alternatively assumes that consumers know only the distribution of WTP rather than their own true WTP as a single value, recognizing the existence of uncertainties. In a RAM, a risk averting individual would accept an uncertain offer only if his or her WTP is large enough to exceed the bidding price by more than a risk premium. This is in a striking contrast with the TAM in which the WTP is simply compared with the bidding price. An empirical comparison is made between RAM and TAM to see how seriously the TAM underestimates the WTP. It is found that underestimation problem is very serious in the TAM.