Logsums for utility-maximizers and regret-minimizers, and their relation with desirability and satisfaction: Fid-Bau Portal

Logsums for utility-maximizers and regret-minimizers, and their relation with desirability and satisfaction

Chorus, Caspar G.

Highlights ► Presents correlations between Logsums and stated desirability of choice sets. ► Presents correlations between Logsums and stated satisfaction with alternatives. ► Considers Random Utility Maximization- and Random Regret Minimization-Logsums. ► Paper is first to introduce and interpret random regret-minimization based logsum. ► For both Logsums, correlations with desirability and satisfaction are fairly weak.

Abstract This paper studies to what extent the Logsum-measure of user benefits relates to travelers’ perceptions of choice set-desirability and choice-satisfaction. Knowing these relations is important since researchers have recently started to analyze and interpret user benefits in general – and Logsums in specific – in terms of these more behaviorally oriented notions, rather than in terms of expected utility. Participants to a stated route choice experiment were asked to indicate, after each choice made, to what extent they considered the choice set to be desirable, or to what extent they were satisfied with the chosen alternative. These measurements were correlated with Logsums that were computed for each choice situation. In addition, the paper derives a regret-based Logsum (which gives the expected regret of a choice situation) and presents a comparison with its utilitarian counterpart. Also for this regret-based Logsum, correlations with desirability- and satisfaction-ratings are computed. As a general finding, it appears that all computed correlations are rather weak. This suggests that, at least in the context of our data, the utility-based Logsum and its regret-based counterpart appear to have only a fairly weak connection with the behavioral notions of choice set-desirability and choice-satisfaction.