How Choice Experiment Design Affects Estimated Valuation of Use of Gestation Crates

This study utilises a split‐sample experimental approach where six different choice experiment designs that vary in the number of attributes are used to control for the effects of design dimensions and consumer inferences in assessing consumer demand. Our application is in the use of gestation stalls (crates) in pork production. Our findings suggest that effects of both the mixture of attributes included in the design and consumer inferences on the specific attributes presented in experiments influence estimated willingness‐to‐pay and consumer welfare. Implications are that when researchers limit their studies to the use of a unique choice experiment design, resulting willingness‐to‐pay estimates might not be robust to different specifications.