How Much Is Data Privacy Worth? A Preliminary Investigation
Winegar first author, with Sunstein. A survey of 2,416 Americans, with primes varying the kind of data at stake, found the median consumer willing to pay just 5 dollars a month to maintain data privacy but demanding 80 dollars to allow access to the same data, a gap the authors call a superendowment effect. Demands were significantly higher when people were primed with health data than with demographic data. The authors conclude both measures are unreliable guides to welfare.
Winegar first author, with Sunstein. A survey of 2,416 Americans, with primes varying the kind of data at stake, found the median consumer willing to pay just 5 dollars a month to maintain data privacy but demanding 80 dollars to allow access to the same data, a gap the authors call a superendowment effect. Demands were significantly higher when people were primed with health data than with demographic data. The authors conclude both measures are unreliable guides to welfare.
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-18.
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Winegar, A. G., & Sunstein, C. R. (2019). How Much Is Data Privacy Worth? A Preliminary Investigation. Journal of Consumer Policy, 42(3), 425-440. doi:10.1007/s10603-019-09419-y.