Framing and the Price Elasticity of Private and Public Goods Journal Article

Overview

The purpose of this research is to show that goods framed to emphasize their association to political concerns produce a distribution of willingness to pay (WTP) different from that produced when the same goods are framed to emphasize their instrumental qualities. Specifically, we hypothesize and find that symbolic presentations of both market and nonmarket goods produce a WTP distribution that is characterized by higher variance and weaker price elasticity than that produced by instrumental presentations of these goods. In addition, we find support for the proposition that changes in the price elasticity of a good are produced by respondents’ differential reliance on instrumental and symbolic considerations. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for marketing and mass politics.