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Analysis of Cardinal and Ordinal Assumptions in Conjoint Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

R. Wes Harrison
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness at the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Jeffrey Gillespie
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness at the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Deacue Fields
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama

Abstract

Of twenty-three agricultural economics conjoint analyses conducted between 1990 and 2001, seventeen used interval-rating scales, with estimation procedures varying widely. This study tests cardinality assumptions in conjoint analysis when interval-rating scales are used, and tests whether the ordered probit or two-limit tobit model is the most valid. Results indicate that cardinality assumptions are invalid, but estimates of the underlying utility scale for the two models do not differ. Thus, while the ordered probit model is theoretically more appealing, the two-limit tobit model may be more useful in practice, especially in cases with limited degrees of freedom, such as with individual-level conjoint models.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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