DOES PART-WHOLE BIAS EXIST - AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION

The existence of part-whole bias has been hotly disputed in the recent contingent valuation literature. This paper reports on an experiment into part-whole bias, Employing vouchers for parts of a restaurant mea l and using an incentive compatible procedure, valuations of the parts and of the whole were elicited. The sum of the valuations of the part s consistently exceeded that of the whole, providing evidence of the e xistence of part-whole bias in a context where traditional explanation s would not have predicted it.