The contingency of contingent valuation. How much are people willing to pay against Alzheimer's disease?

The present work focuses on the choice of the elicitation technique within a contingent valuation (CV) framework. We simultaneously apply three different elicitation techniques to elicit willingness-to-pay (WTP) values for three programs against Alzheimer's disease. First, the dichotomous choice approach is used, which is the standard procedure. However, giving respondents only a yes/no response alternative seems to result in overestimated WTP values. Therefore, we secondly apply the dissonance-minimizing format which screens respondents for their preferences and thus avoids possible yea-saying and protest answers against the payment vehicle. The third format, a modified version of the payment card, allows respondents to express a level of voting certainty and to make less of a commitment. With our findings we show that a well-designed CV method is a suitable instrument for helping decision makers in the health care sector and that the Swiss population favors highly a program which improves the situation of informal caregivers.