An evaluation of the effect of cheap talk script on parameter estimates: A case study of farmers’ preferences for goat plague vaccine in Uganda

Comparisons have been done by different studies in trying to reduce hypothetical bias in discrete choice experiments. The most utilized method being the cheap talk scripts. Very few studies have utilized this methodology in livestock vaccine studies and those that have, do not measure the effects of the cheap talk on the coefficients. This study set out to evaluate the effects of a cheap talk script on the farmers’ preference for the goat plague vaccine. The attributes in this study included time it takes to the vaccination center, quality assurance guarantor, personnel vaccinating, certification after vaccination, administrative costs and price. The study was carried out in three districts of Uganda with 444 small ruminant farmers. Data was analyzed using conditional logit. The results indicated increased willingness to pay after the cheap talk and farmers preferences changes after the cheap talk.