The influence of background knowledge when measuring utility

The present study is done to evaluate whether economic background knowledge or health related background knowledge has an influence on the results when measuring utility. The comparison is done with three groups of students (Economics, Policy & Management in Health care and Economics & Law) and their utilities for three different health states using the PE-method and the PLE2-method. No significant results are found, but there are indications that respondents with economic background knowledge are less likely to give inconsistent answers in the questionnaire and therefore are less likely to be excluded from the analysis. Future studies with larger groups of respondents are needed to further test these indications.