Investigating Non-Attendance of Attributes in Choice Experiment with Endogenous Attribute Non-Attendance (Case Study: Organic Tea Consumers in Tehran)

In the choice experiment process, some respondents might not attend to all presented attributes when evaluating and choosing their preferred options. This leads to the heterogeneity of respondents' behavior. In order to consider this heterogeneity in the process of choosing organic tea consumers in Tehran, in the current study, a new approach of endogenous attribute attendance (EAA) in the logit model has been used. Data and information needed for this study were obtained by 405 questionnaires completely randomly from Tehran consumers. The results of the estimation of two logit conditional models with all attributes and the Logit model with endogenous attribute attendance (EAA), suggest that the logit model with endogenous attribute attendance (EAA), has better compatibility with the data and behavior of respondents. In addition, the results of estimating the willingness to pay for the two models are different from each other. Regarding the willing to pay consumers for organic tea characteristics, it is proposed to raise awareness about the benefits of organic tea to raise the health of the community.