A recent unfortunate event that took place on a United Airlines flight provides what economists call a “natural experiment”that can help show how well economic theory performs in the real world. The event, in which a passenger was randomlyselected to be bumped from a United flight after he had been seated and was subsequently forcibly removed from the aircraft,resulted in a viral video and a wave of negative publicity for the airline. Economists would expect a strong wave of negativepublicity to affect demand for United’s services. Morning Consult, a media and polling company, set up a polling experimentthat tried to determine the impact of the negative publicity. Read the article “How Much Would You Put Up With to Avoid United Airlines” from the New York Timesand then answer the questions:
a. How did the polling company test the impact of negative publicity of United? What results did the polling company obtain?
b. What cautions does the article give about interpreting the results of this experiment? Which of these cautions do you think are the most important? With these cautions, do you think the results of this experiment are credible?