Experimental Economics and Hedonic Pricing: An Application to Wine Attributes

Hedonic studies of product attributes contend with unobservable prices of attributes and identification problems. This dissertation uses experimental techniques to study consumer valuation of a multi-attribute product---wine. The experiments reflect precisely Rosen's consumer value function. Two experiments, one in a wine retail setting and one in a sensory laboratory, eliminated supply-side influences and solved identification problems found in demand analysis.;In the retail field experiment, participants had just indicated a choice in the retail setting. These participants completed a valuation experiment, which incorporated the incentive-compatibility of the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism with novel features to account for findings from behavioral economics. The experimental design provided a clean valuation of appellations and wine varieties in the United States.;The laboratory experiment permitted observation of consumer valuation for sensory attributes of wine, appellations, expert ratings, and wineries. Participants submitted bids each time they received new information about the wines. The balanced experimental design permits evaluation of the effects of consumer characteristics on attribute valuation.;The results of the field and laboratory experiments provide a unique view of consumer valuation of wine attributes. For instance, after eliminating cost-side biases, appellation is often not an important variable in explaining differences in willingness to pay. The field experiment reveals that appellation explains little of consumer valuation in the most complete econometric specification. In the laboratory experiment, the contributions of prestigious appellations to the value of Cabernet Sauvignons depended on consumer characteristics. Willingness to pay was highly correlated with sensory evaluation, but even after tasting the wine, appellation and expert ratings still mattered for WTP. Overall, the research provides novel evidence on consumer attribute valuation in differentiated product markets.