Structural Modeling and Policy Simulation : A Comment

We review the importance of structural modeling for the purposes of simulation of the effects of changes in marketing policy. We pay particular attention to the aspects of structural modeling which present unique challenges for researchers in marketing. We also catalogue some of the advantages that marketing researchers enjoy in the development and estimation of structural models. This paper was orginially commissioned as a comment on Philip Hans Franses' paper, 'On the Use of Marketing Models for Policy Simulation', (forthcoming, Journal of Marketing Research)