The Impact of Utility Balance Endogeneity in Conjoint Analysis
Adaptive metric utility balance is at the heart of one of the most widely used and studied methods for conjoint analysis. We use formal models, simulations, and empirical data to suggest that adaptive metric utility balance leads to partworth estimates that are relatively biased—smaller partworths are upwardly biased relative to larger partworths. Such relative biases could lead to erroneous managerial decisions.