This paper provides a method to estimate search costs in an environment in which consumers are uncertain about the … provides bounds on the search costs that can rationalize observed search and purchasing behavior. Using individual …-specific data on web browsing and purchasing behavior for electronics sold online we show how to use these bounds to estimate search …

In this paper we analyse a model of oligopolistic competition in which consumers search without priors. Consumers do … not have prior beliefs about the distribution of prices charged by rms and thus try to use a robust search procedure: they … consumers stop searching with a probability strictly between zero and one. We show that for any distribution of search costs …

present consumers with product options. Presenting the best alternatives reduces search costs associated with a consumer … the underlying ranking and the consumer's search process. We use novel data on consumer click-stream behavior from a major …-based ranking, our model accounts for the rapidly changing prices that characterize the hotel industry, consumers' expected search …

consumers improves the deals available to all consumers in the market (the case of search externalities), and when the non …

In a recent paper Hong and Shum [2006. Using price distributions to estimate search costs. Rand Journal of Economics 37 …, 257–275] present a structural method to estimate search cost distributions. We extend their approach to the case of … oligopoly and present a new maximum likelihood method to estimate search costs. We apply our method to a data set of online …

We analyse consumers' search and purchase decisions on an Internet platform. Using a rich dataset on all adverts posted … structural model of sequential directed search where consumers observe all advert prices but have to pay a search cost to see the … other advert characteristics. We allow for flexible heterogeneity in consumers' preferences and search costs. After deriving …

options, and there is less incentive to search. We also discuss a behavioral model where the propensity to buy increases when …

search sequentially for satisfactory deals. In the pre-merger symmetric equilibrium, consumers visit firmsrandomly. However … non-merging stores, and only when they do not find a satisfactory product there they visit the merging firms. As search … products of the constituent firms, which generates sizable search economies. We show that such demand-side economies can confer …

demand with optimal consumer search. Consumers first choose which products to search; then, once they learn the utility they … characteristics but also from variation in the costs of searching them. We apply the model to the automobile industry. Our search cost … estimate is highly significant and indicates that consumers conduct a limited amount of search. Estimates of own- and cross …