This paper presents an empirical examination of oligopoly pricing and consumer search. The theoretical model allows for sequential and non-sequential search and, using the theoretical restrictions firm and consumer behavior impose on the data, we study the empirical validity of the models. Two...

This paper shows how sustainable consumption patterns can spread within a population via processes of social learning even though a strong individual learning bias may favor environmentally harmful products. We present a model depicting how the biased transmission of different behaviors via...

A characteristic feature of economic development is the ever changing structure of consumption patterns. Reducing the explanation of this phenomenon to changing prices, finally caused by changes in the availability of goods (or characteristics), would neglect a major force driving this change,...

It has been argued that cognitively constrained consumers respond sub-optimally to complex decision problems, and that firms can exploit these limitations by introducing spurious complexity into tariff structures, weakening price competition. We model a countervailing force. Restricting one's...

In this article we propose a two stage procedure to model demand decisions by customers who are balancing several dimensions of a product. We then test our procedure by analyzing the behavior of buyers from an Austrian price comparison site. Although in such a market a consumer will typically...

In this article we propose a two stage procedure to model demand decisions by customers who are balancing several dimensions of a product. We then test our procedure by analyzing the behavior of buyers from an Austrian price comparison site. Although in such a market a consumer will typically...

When a durable good of uncertain quality is introduced to the market, some consumers strategically delay their buying to the next period with the hope of learning the unknown quality. We analyze the monopolist's pricing and waiting strategies when consumers have strategic delay incentives. We...

In dem vorliegenden Papier wird untersucht, inwieweit Verbraucherschutz und der Informationsstand von Konsumenten einen Einfluss auf die Entwicklung einer Industrie haben. Hierzu wird das evolutorische Simulationsmodell von Winter (1984) um einen explizit modellierten Konsumsektor in Anlehnung...

We designed an experiment that examines how knowledge about the price of a good, and the time at which the information is received, affects how the good is experienced. The good in question was wine, and the price was either high or low. Our results suggest that hosts offering wine to guests can...

Behavioral (e.g. consumption) patterns of boundedly rational agents can lead these agents into learning dynamics that appear to be wasteful in terms of well-being or welfare. Within settings displaying preference endogeneity, it is however still unclear how to conceptualize well-being. This...