The effect of power outages and cheap talk on willingness to pay to reduce outages

Using an open-ended contingent valuation survey, we analyze how (i) experience of a power outage due to one of the worst storms ever to hit Sweden and (ii) a cheap talk script affect respondents' WTP to avoid power outages. Experience significantly increases and a cheap talk script significantly decreases the proportion of respondents with zero WTP, and as a result stated WTP is lower with experience and the cheap talk script. The paper concludes with a discussion on the use of valuation studies shortly after the occurrence of an undesirable event.