Development of Scientific Discourses on Consumers’ Willingness to Pay: From Neoclassicism to Neuroeconomics

This study traces the evolution of scientific views on willingness to pay (WTP), which comprises three main stages corresponding to changes in economic thought. The study is based on a review of 91 key publications found via Google Scholar and e-Library. First, the neoclassical approach saw WTP as an objective measure of marginal utility under rational choice. Although formally rigorous, it was criticized for ignoring cognitive limits and social factors. Second, proponents of the behavioral approach argued that value assessments are systematically distorted. While this approach offered strong explanatory power, its drawback was the resulting fragmentation of models, which made forecasting difficult. Third, the neuroeconomic approach focuses on the biological basis of decision-making, using neuroscience methods. While it identified “neural correlates” of WTP, it remains expensive and not widely applied in practice. Alongside these shifts, methods for measuring WTP evolved—from hypothetical surveys prone to subjectivity to experiments that record actual behavior and physiological reactions. The study systematizes the theoretical and methodological foundations of WTP research and points to future directions, such as expanding interdisciplinary approaches, developing new measurement methods, studying WTP in the digital economy, and using artificial intelligence to improve forecasting of consumer behavior.