A Review of WTA/WTP Studies

Willingness to accept (WTA) is usually substantially higher than willingness to pay (WTP). These constructs have been studied for roughly 30 years and with a wide variety of goods. This paper reviews those studies. We find that the less the good is like an “ordinary market good,” the higher is the ratio. The ratio is highest for non-market goods, next highest for ordinary private goods, and lowest for experiments involving forms of money. A generalization of this pattern holds even when we account for differences in survey design: ordinary goods have lower ratios than non-ordinary ones. We also find that ratios in real experiments are not significantly different from hypothetical experiments and that incentive-compatible elicitation yields higher ratios.