Hypothetical versus real willingness to pay: comment

The purpose of this comment is to examine the experimental design and empirical results presented by Johannesson, M., Liljas, B. and Peterson, G. (Applied Economics Letters, 4, 1997). Their paper attempts to confirm the Neill, H. R., Cummings, R. G., Ganderton, P., Harrison, G. W. and McGuckin, T. (Land Economics, 70, 1994) results. Their results are noteworthy since they find no statistical difference between real and hypothetical willingness-to-pay responses between groups. Their results also differ from earlier studies where hypothetical willingness to pay exceeds actual willingness to pay. This comment will examine important differences between the two studies. These differences make any substantive comparison of results difficult, if not impossible.