An iterative bidding process was de

An iterative bidding process was determined to be appropriate based on the
sample size, previous studies’ recommendations (Whittington, 1993) and the
common practice of negotiating in Ugandan markets and other business
transactions. The Ugandan shilling (UGX) was valued at 2770:1 against the U.S.
dollar (USD) at the time of the study (Yahoo 2011) . The smallest denomination
of currency is a 50 shilling coin, but it is uncommon in practice and typically the
smallest price increment is 100 shillings. Due to these factors, bidding prices of
100, 200, 400, 600 and 800 were chosen. 800 Shillings was considered to be the
lowest value we would expect to receive almost universal rejection
To control for starting-point bias, surveys started at either a high-bid (800
Shillings) or low-bid (100 Shillings) and then proceeded until the highest amount
the respondent was willing to pay was recorded. In the case of ascending bids,
the first no response then indicated the willingness to pay for that respondent
was between the most previous yes response and the value they rejected. For
those that started with the high bid, the first yes indicated a willingness to pay
some value between that value accepted and the previous rejection.
The study was designed in English, which is the national language of Uganda but
is not widely spoken by the rural populations where education levels are lower.
The completed survey was then translated into Luganda, the primary language of the study area and most widely used language in Uganda, then re-translated
to English to check for consistency.