ON THE INSENSITIVITY OF BRAND-CHOICE SIMULATIONS TO ATTRIBUTE IMPORTANCE WEIGHTS

This study compares, via brand-choice simulation, the effect of various distortions in attribute importance weights on share of choices at the aggregate-sample level. The results indicate that severe distortions in importance weights can occur with little change in aggregate brand share. The implications of this result for utility estimation in main-effects conjoint analysis suggest that considerably simpler ways can be adopted to estimate part worths.