We are pleased to announce the first journal paper-output of our research program: a publication in the multidisciplinary Journal of Choice Modelling (special issue containing selected contributions from the 5th International Choice Modelling Conference). I would like to acknowledge contributions from co-authors Niek Mouter (TU Delft), Baiba Pudane (TU Delft), and Danny Campbell (Stirling U.) – all from outside the BEHAVE team.
Here is the abstract: An influential body of literature in moral psychology suggests that decision makers consider trade-offs morally problematic, or taboo, when the attributes traded off against each other belong to different ‘spheres’, such as friendship versus market transactions. This study is the first to model and empirically explore taboo trade-off aversion in a discrete choice context. To capture possible taboo trade-off aversion, we propose to extend the conventional linear in parameters logit model by including penalties for taboo trade-offs. Using this model, we then explore the presence (and size) of taboo trade-off aversion in a data set specifically collected for this purpose. Results, based on estimation of a variety of (Mixed) Logit models with and without taboo trade-off penalties, suggest that there is indeed a significant and sizeable taboo trade-off aversion underlying choice behaviour of respondents.
