Herd immunity at what price? Using auctions to estimate what university students must be paid to get the flu vaccine.

There is significant resistance to vaccinations. Fewer than half of adults get a flu shot in the United States in a typical year, and a large minority of Americans say they will not get vaccinated against COVID-19. This resistance to vaccines creates challenges for both public health and the economy.

Estimating the price elasticity of demand for JUUL E-cigarettes among teens.

Background: The widespread popularity of e-cigarettes, particularly JUUL, has led to an alarming increase in teen nicotine use, reversing a 40-year trend. One key question is how sensitive teens' demand for JUUL is to changes in price.

Methods: We estimate the price elasticity of demand using results from an experimental auction where teen nicotine users and nonusers bid on a JUUL kit.

Which smokers adopt e-cigarettes and at what price? An experimental estimation of price elasticity of demand and factors correlated with e-cigarette adoption.

E-cigarette use has surged in recent years. Many of these new users are cigarette smokers. It is unclear whether e-cigarette adoption by smokers will lead to improved public health due to uncertainty about whether e-cigarettes help smokers quit using cigarettes and about whether ongoing dual use reduces exposure to toxins.

Does Winning an Experimental Auction Change People's Behavior? An Application to E-cigarettes.

Experimental auctions allow researchers to estimate demand for products like e-cigarettes in a non-hypothetical environment where participants face real and immediate consequences for their bids. However, because auction winners actually purchase the product they bid on, participants may be introduced to a product they otherwise would not have discovered. Based on an experimental auction where 432 participants bid to buy e-cigarettes, we found that auction winners are significantly more likely to be using e-cigarettes two weeks, six weeks, and six months after the study but are no less likely to be daily cigarette smokers.

How much is social media worth? Estimating the value of Facebook by paying users to stop using it.

Facebook, the online social network, has more than 2 billion global users. Because those users do not pay for the service, its benefits are hard to measure. We report the results of a series of three non-hypothetical auction experiments where winners are paid to deactivate their Facebook accounts for up to one year.

Effect of brand and advertising medium on demand for e-cigarettes: Evidence from an experimental auction.

Print and television advertisements for e-cigarettes are currently legal in the United States. Given that e-cigarettes are a lower-risk alternative to cigarettes, these ads could have a positive public health impact if they motivate smokers to switch to e-cigarettes. However, the public health impact of e-cigarette ads could be negative if ads increase demand for both e-cigarettes and cigarettes.

Smokers' BMI and perceived health: Does the order of questions matter?

We surveyed 431 daily smokers between November 2014 and March 2015 to examine the impact of the order of questions on the response to a self-reported health question as part of a larger experimental study. We randomized the question order, with some respondents providing their weight prior to self-reporting their health, while others did the opposite. We found that self-reported health outcomes are worse when smokers are first asked to report their weight.

Using Experimental Auctions to Examine Demand for E-Cigarettes.

Background: E-cigarettes are the latest in a line of potentially reduced exposure products that have garnered interest among smokers.

Methods: In this paper, we use experimental auctions to estimate smokers' demand for e-cigarettes and to assess the impact of advertisements on willingness to pay. These are actual auctions, with winners and losers, which means hypothetical biases often seen in surveys are minimized.

The impact of free trial acceptance on demand for alternative nicotine products: evidence from experimental auctions.

Objectives: This study explored the relationship between product trials and consumer demand for alternative nicotine products (ANP).

Methods: An experimental auction was conducted with 258 adult smokers, wherein participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions. The participants received the opportunity to try, but did not have to accept, one of three relatively novel ST products (i.

Examining the relationship between psychosocial and behavioral proxies for future consumption behavior: self-reported impact and bidding behavior in an experimental auction study on cigarette labeling.

Experimental and observational research often involves asking consumers to self-report the impact of some proposed option. Because self-reported responses involve no consequence to the respondent for falsely revealing how he or she feels about an issue, self-reports may be subject to social desirability and other influences that bias responses in important ways. In this article, we analyzed data from an experiment on the impact of cigarette packaging and pack warnings, comparing smokers' self-reported impact (four-item scale) and the bids they placed in experimental auctions to estimate differences in demand.

The impact of product information and trials on demand for smokeless tobacco and cigarettes: evidence from experimental auctions.

Introduction: Epidemiological and toxicological evidence suggests lower risk of smokeless tobacco (ST) products compared to cigarettes. Less is known, however, about consumer perceptions and use of novel forms of ST, including snus and dissolvable tobacco.

Methods: In this study, we conducted in-person experimental auctions in Buffalo, NY, Columbia, SC, and Selinsgrove, PA with 571 smokers to test the impact of information and product trials on smokers' preferences.

What do consumer surveys and experiments reveal and conceal about consumer preferences for genetically modified foods?

Assessing consumer perceptions and willingness to pay for genetically modified (GM) foods has been one of the most active areas of empirical research in agricultural economics. Researchers over the past 15 years have delivered well over 100 estimates of consumers' willingness to pay for GM foods using surveys and experimental methods. In this review, we explore a number of unresolved issues related to three questions that are critical when considering the sum of the individual contributions that constitute the evidence on consumer preferences for GM foods.

Estimating the impact of pictorial health warnings and "plain" cigarette packaging: evidence from experimental auctions among adult smokers in the United States.

Objective: To estimate differences in demand for cigarette packages with different packaging and health warning label formats.

Methods: Adult smokers (n=404) in four states participated in experimental auctions. Participants bid on two of four experimental conditions, each involving a different health warning label format but with the same warning message: (1) text on 50% of pack side; (2) text on 50% of the pack front and back; (3) text with a graphic picture on 50% of the pack front and back; and (4) same as previous format, but without brand imagery.

Estimating the impact of different cigarette package warning label policies: the auction method.

The study estimated the reduction in demand associated with implementing cigarette package warning labels that contain imagery illustrating the consequences of smoking. The experimental auction method was used, wherein adult smokers in Mexico (n=89) placed separate bids on two packs of cigarettes: one with a text-only warning label and the other with a warning label that included text and a graphic image. Differences in the values attributed to each pack were assessed using t-tests and multivariate regression.

Decomposing the value of cigarettes using experimental auctions.

Using a new brand of cigarettes with less nicotine content than conventional cigarettes, we conducted experimental auctions at two grocery stores to estimate smokers' value of nicotine. Our approach is novel because the brand of cigarettes auctioned was new to the market and the cigarette's nicotine content is reduced using genetic modification, with no effect on the taste of the cigarettes. We found smokers would be willing to pay US$1.