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Abstract
Discrete choice experiment data aimed at eliciting the demand for recreational
walking trails on farmland in Ireland is used to explore whether some respondents
reach their choices solely on the basis of the alternative’s label. To investigate this
type of processing strategy, this paper exploits a discrete mixtures approach that also
encompasses continuous distributions to reflect the heterogeneity in preferences for
the attributes. We find evidence that a proportion of respondents adopt this processing
strategy and that the strategies employed by rural and urban respondents are
somewhat different. Results further highlight that model fit and measures of welfare
are sensitive to assumptions related to processing strategies among respondents.