Development of an Application Program for the Design and Analysis of Choice Experiments with R

Abstract

This paper aims to develop an application program for the design and statistical analysis of choice experiments with R. Microsoft Excel is used as the user interface, and RExcel, which is included in the R-(D)COM Server, connects MS Excel and R. The AlgDesign and the survival package in R are used for designing the choice sets and analyzing a data set respectively. In the Japanese environment, this program has several advantages in comparison with MS Excel-based application programs or using R via the command prompt mode. First, it can design the choice sets via the GUI mode. Second, it automatically generates the data set for a conditional logit model. Finally, the accuracy of the estimation result is improved. However, since this program is designed for novice users of the choice experiments, the upper bound of the number of attributes, levels, alternatives per choice set, and choice sets is imposed, and an analytical model is limited to the conditional logit model.