A field experiment in Zambia examines whether higher prices can stimulate the use of a home water purification solution. The study, authored by Nava Ashraf of Harvard University, develops a methodology to separate screening effects from psychological sunk-cost effects. It finds that higher prices screen out low-use households but finds no consistent evidence for sunk-cost effects.
Use Cases
- Modeling the screening effect of price on product adoption based on household characteristics.
- Analyzing the relationship between price and product use intensity mentioned in the experiment.
- Testing behavioral economic theories on sunk-cost effects using field experiment data.
- Simulating market targeting strategies for health products in developing regions.
Strengths
- Data originates from a controlled field experiment, allowing for causal inference.
- Methodology is explicitly designed to separate screening and sunk-cost effects.
- Study is authored by a researcher from a prominent institution (Harvard University).
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to a single field experiment in Zambia.
Provenance
- Source
- paperswithcode
- Collection Method
- Field experiment involving door-to-door marketing.
- Geography
- Zambia