A-optimal and A-efficient designs for discrete choice experiments

This paper investigates locally A-optimal designs for estimating main effects of the attributes, together with their interactions, under the multinomial logit model. Lower bounds are derived for the average variance of any set of orthonormal contrasts of interest. A new approach is proposed for generating locally A-optimal or A-efficient designs. It is shown through examples that the new construction method enables highly efficient designs to be constructed without a complete search.