Matching reality: A basket and expenditure based choice experiment with sensory preferences

Abstract

This article introduces a basket and expenditure based choice experiment design to elicit consumer preferences for multiple products. This design is utilized to imitate a more realistic shopping scenario for consumers when choosing among many different products simultaneously. This approach allows participants to choose both multiple items, in this case vegetables, and related quantities/expenditures to place in a basket of goods. We provide an application of the experimental design to a vegetable choice experiment. This is done in conjunction with a sensory experiment to provide a contextual component to the experiment and econometric model. This type of experiment lends itself to the use of the Multiple Discrete-Continuous Extreme Value (MDCEV) class of models. More specifically, we use the extended version of the MDCEV model proposed by Palma and Hess (2020) that relaxes the need for a budget while also accounting for substitution and complementarity among products. We find that the proposed design and class of econometric methods present a flexible way to analyze consumer choice when the desire is to elicit preferences for a basket of goods rather than simple discrete alternatives or attributes.