CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR: DOES HISTORY MATTER

The economic crisis and its obvious effects are moulding consumer behaviour and offer the framework for reshaping consumption patterns. However, confronted with budget changes it is natural to assume that consumers might be reluctant to immediately recast their consumption patterns. Their reluctance can be related to the notion of hysteresis which is used by economists to describe the persistent influence of past economic events. The paper aims at presenting the notion of hysteresis, briefly reviewing its application to economics and especially consumer behaviour, given the vast possibilities for empirical testing offered by the present context.