Consumer search and dynamic price dispersion: an application to gasoline markets

This article studies the role of imperfect information in explaining price dispersion. We use a new panel data set on the U.S. retail gasoline industry and propose a new test of temporal price dispersion to establish the importance of consumer search. We show that price rankings vary significantly over time; however, they are more stable among stations at the same street intersection. We establish the equilibrium relationships between price dispersion and key variables from consumer search models. Price dispersion increases with the number of firms in the market, decreases with the production cost, and increases with search costs.     

Advertising,the matchmaker

We empirically study the informational role of advertising in matching consumers with products when consumers are uncertain about both observable and unobserved program attributes. Our focus is on the network television industry, in which the products are television shows. We estimate a model that allows us to distinguish between the direct effect of advertising on utility and its effect through the information set. A notable behavioral implication is that exposure to informational advertising can decrease the consumer’s tendency to purchase the promoted product. The structural estimates imply that an exposure to a single advertisement decreases the consumer’s probability of not choosing her best alternative by approximately 10%. Our results are relevant for industries characterized by product proliferation and horizontal differentiation.     

融媒体时代农村广告关联型商品选择分析

本研究运用规范分析法,通过基本假设和模型分析研究福建农村消费者所表现出的消费偏好,明确内在的消费支出动态变化状况,分析对广告商品选择意愿产生直观影响的几个因素,有针对性地制定对农广告传播政策.结论显示,需要降低广告关联型消费品相对价格;通过制定相应的广告传播策略,使农村居民消费行为达到更为理想的状况.     

Spatial Competition and Shopping Externalities: Evidence from the Housing Market

In search markets, greater spatial concentration of sellers increases price competition. At the same time, though, a greater concentration of sellers can create a shopping externality by attracting more buyers to the site. Using housing sales data, we test for spatial competition and shopping externality effects on prices and marketing time. We find that they reflect both competitive and shopping externality effects from surrounding houses, although the relative strength varies with how fresh the house is in the market, the freshness of surrounding houses, and the phase of the market cycle. New listings have the strongest shopping externality effect on neighboring houses that have been on the market for some time. Vacant houses have their strongest competition effects in the declining market and externality effects in the rising market. Fresh houses on the market reap little benefit from shopping externalities in all phases of the market cycle.     

人民币汇率关注度初步研究

随着互联网的普及．网络搜索统计功能为我们研究汇率关注度提供了一个快捷、有效的渠道。文章基于百度和谷歌近期关于“人民币汇率”的搜索统计结果,对人民币汇率关注度进行历史、区域、人群属性等多纬度的比较,以期全面了解市场对人民币汇率的关注情况。文章指出,该统计方法能方便了解实体经济对汇率关注的真实反映,有助于探索汇率升贬值预期,选择汇率政策出台时机,合理推动人民币离岸市场发展和对人民币挂牌货币的选择。     

Peer effects in corporate advertisement expenditure: Evidence from China

This study investigates whether industry peers affect focal firms’ advertising expenditure decisions and further explores the mechanisms and economic consequences of such effects. We find that peer firms have a significantly positive influence on the focal firm’s advertising expenditure. The results hold after a series of robustness tests. Additionally, the peer effects in advertising expenditure are more salient in industries with intense competition; and when economic policy uncertainty and demand uncertainty is higher. Interestingly, our results show that followers mimic the advertising expenditure of industry leaders, while leaders also react to followers’ advertising expenditure. We also find that the peer effects in advertising expenditure improve firms’ sales and market value. Our study contributes to a better understanding of peer effects on corporate decisions.     

Advertising as a search deterrent

This article examines a monopoly firm's incentive to disclose information through advertising when consumers can choose between buying immediately and searching for additional information. Because sales drop when search reveals low match values to consumers, the firm has an incentive to deter search. We show that partial information disclosure emerges as a useful tool for search deterrence when search costs are low. Informative advertising and consumer search can be viewed as complements in producing information. Although transparency policies reduce search expenditures and improve purchase decisions, whether they are socially desirable depends on the magnitude of search costs.     

Quantifying search and switching costs in the US auto insurance industry

I estimate demand for auto insurance in the presence of two types of market frictions: search and switching costs. I develop an integrated utility‐maximizing model in which consumers decide over which and how many companies to search and from which company to purchase. My modelling approach rationalizes observed consideration sets as being the outcomes of consumers' search processes. I find search costs to range from $35 to $170 and average switching costs of $40. Search costs are the most important driver of customer retention and their elimination is the main lever to increase consumer welfare in the auto insurance industry.     

The double jeopardy of sales promotions

The maturing of most consumer markets in the United States has put great pressure on manufacturers in their search for growth. They have concentrated on building sales and expanding share proportions in the stagnant markets with devices like niche products, product extensions, mergers, and international ventures. They have shifted emphasis to sales promotions at the expense of advertising. But promotions, when you come right down to it, mean price reductions. Trade promotions are almost always rebates, and consumer promotions are usually temporary price reductions or coupons. The cost in reduced profit, demonstrated mathematically through calculations of price elasticity, is severe. Besides, when the promotion is over, the manufacturer has not moved forward an inch in shoring up the brand franchise. Promotions bring volatile demand, whereas the producer seeks stable demand. By sustaining a brand image and building customer loyalty, on the other hand, theme advertising can stabilize demand. Moreover, this type of advertising is less likely than promotion is to invite destructive competitive retaliation. Calculation of the advertising elasticity of a brand indicates that sometimes even modest sales increases can produce healthy profit improvement. In a well-planned marketing campaign, there is often good reason to include trade or consumer promotion--to counter a leading competitor's moves, for example. But there is no point in carrying out wild swings at rivals in a struggle for market share. Mathematical techniques can aid the efficiency of marketing planning and put on a more rational basis the decision on where to put the dollars.     

Advertising dynamics and competitive advantage

Can advertising lead to a sustainable competitive advantage? To answer this question, we propose a dynamic model of advertising competition where firms repeatedly advertise, compete in the product market, and make entry as well as exit decisions. Within this dynamic framework, we study two different models of advertising: in the first model, advertising influences the goodwill consumers extend toward a firm (“goodwill advertising”), whereas in the second model it influences the share of consumers who are aware of the firm (“awareness advertising”). We show that asymmetries may arise and persist under goodwill as well as awareness advertising. The basis for a strategic advantage, however, differs greatly in the two models of advertising. We show that tighter regulation or an outright ban of advertising may have anticompetitive effects and discuss how firms use advertising to deter and accommodate entry and induce exit in a dynamic setting.     

Targeted information and limited attention

We examine the implications of limited consumer attention for the targeting decisions of competing firms. Limited attention alters the strategic role of information provision as firms may become incentivized to behave as mass advertisers, despite perfect targeting abilities. We analyze the consequences of limited attention for targeting, strategic pricing, market shares, attention competition between firms, and the value of marketing data to firms. Accounting for limited attention in an otherwise standard targeting framework can explain several recent key issues from the advertising industry, such as consumer-side information overload or the increased usage of ad blocking tools.     

房地产业对宏观经济的影响机制研究

房地产的投资、消费双重属性和资金密集等特点,使得房地产业与居民消费、投资、金融等诸多方面都密切关联,进而对宏观经济产生重要影响.本文分别从消费投资渠道、银行信贷渠道、产业关联渠道、市场调控渠道和微观主体行为等各个角度,研究了房地产业对宏观经济的直接、间接影响,并总结了多渠道综合的影响机制.     

Joint audit,audit market structure,and consumer surplus

We use a structural application of the discrete choice model to investigate how the introduction of a joint audit policy would affect audit market structure and consumer surplus. We perform this policy evaluation by identifying demand fundamentals in a joint audit regime and applying them to a single audit regime. We find that a joint audit requirement has the potential to change the audit market structure substantially but that the effects are sensitive to the specific policy design. For example, small audit firms gain market share in a joint audit regime but only if an equal sharing of the workload between the two joint auditors is not required. Our counterfactual analysis reveals that the introduction of a joint audit regime would be associated with a substantial loss of consumer surplus. The loss results from restricting clients from giving all of the audit work to their most preferred audit firm, but it is partly offset by gains in consumer surplus deriving from the opportunity to choose the best combination of auditor pairs.     

The perils of overconfidence: Why many consumers fail to seek advice when they really should

Consumers regularly make decisions. Some of these decisions are relatively simple, such as a selecting a jam or a coffee, where the choice is entirely subjective. Others, such as investment decision-making, are risky, complex, consequential, and there is a normatively optimal choice. Seeking advice from an expert is a reasonable solution in these circumstances, and yet a minority of investors turn to a professional for advice. As an alternative to human advisors, technology is increasingly being harnessed to provide effective and low-cost advice to assist consumers in making decisions. In a retail context, these are shop bots and search engines often used on a mobile phone while shopping. In an investment context, these are frequently referred to as “robo-advisors”. Examining consumer intention to seek advice in an investment context, the current study demonstrates that, among numerous factors examined, unfounded confidence was the best indicator of consumer reluctance to seek advice. Robo-advisors, as artificial intelligence agents providing financial literacy instruction and impartial expert advice, may offer a solution.     

The Coexistence of Distribution Systems When Consumers Are Not Informed

We attempt to explain the coexistence of two distribution systems when consumers are poorly informed about price distribution. The interaction of price dispersion and consumer search behavior is shown to affect the choice of marketing systems. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the coexistence as a long-run equilibrium. The market may observe the coexistence of the two agency systems regardless of the relative efficiency of agency types, or the domination by the less efficient agency system offering higher average price.     

Targeting in advertising markets: implications for offline versus online media

We develop a model with many advertisers (products) and many advertising markets (media). Each advertiser sells to a different segment of consumers, and each medium is targeting a different audience. We characterize the competitive equilibrium in the advertising markets and evaluate the implications of targeting. An increase in targeting leads to an increase in the total number of consumer‐product matches, and hence in the social value of advertising. Yet, targeting also increases the concentration of firms advertising in each market. Surprisingly, we then find that the equilibrium price of advertisements is first increasing, then decreasing, in the targeting capacity. We trace out the implications of targeting for competing media. We distinguish offline and online media by their targeting ability: low versus high. As consumers’ relative exposure to online media increases, the revenues of offline media decrease, even though the price of advertising might increase.     

Getting the most out of advertising and promotion

Until recently, believing in the effectiveness of advertising and promotion was largely a matter of faith. Despite all the data collected by marketing departments, none measured what was really important: the incremental sales of a product over and above those that would happen without the advertising and promotion. Thanks to a qualitatively new kind of marketing data, that situation is changing. "Single source" data correlate information on actual consumer purchases (available from universal-product-code scanners used in supermarkets and drug-stores) with information on the corresponding television advertising those consumers receive or on the promotion events they see. This allows managers to measure the incremental impact of advertising and promotion and to improve marketing productivity. To take advantage of the new single-source data, however, managers have to throw out much of the conventional wisdom about advertising and promotion that has grown up over the years. They must learn how to evaluate marketing differently by continually examining the appropriate balance between advertising and promotion. They must also train their sales force to do a different and extremely important job: to demonstrate to retailers the consumer pull of the company's advertising and promotion programs, as well as the effect of these programs on retailer profitability.     

Managerial sentiment,consumer confidence and sector returns

This paper investigates the relationship between managerial sentiment and sector returns. Using UK monthly data from January 1985 to December 2014 and a sample of consumer and business confidence indicators provided by the European Commission, we provide novel evidence on how managerial and consumer sentiment indicators affect stock returns. We find no support for consumer confidence as a predictor of stock returns. However, managerial sentiment shows a significant impact on aggregate market and sector return indices. Furthermore, we find that parameter estimates for sector groupings are not consistent, implying that the sentiment-return relationship differs across sectors. We also find parameters are sensitive to industry characteristics. Importantly, the overall sentiment-return relationship is dominated by sentiment associated with manufacturing firms.     

Real exchange rate, productivity and labor market frictions

We extend the classic Balassa-Samuelson model to an environment with search unemployment. We show that the classic Balassa-Samuelson model with the assumption of full employment emerges as a special case of our more generalized model. In our generalized model, the degree of labor market matching efficiency affects the strength of the structural relationship between the real exchange rate and sectoral productivity through influencing labor’s choice between employment and unemployment as well as movement across sectors. When the relative labor market matching friction is high, search unemployment is high and the standard Balassa-Samuelson effect may not hold. Empirical evidence supports our theory: controlling for differences in labor market frictions across countries provides a better fit in estimating the Balassa-Samuelson effect.     

Financial literacy and consumer credit portfolios

We use survey data from a sample of UK households to analyse the relationship between financial literacy and consumer credit portfolios. We show that individuals who borrow on consumer credit exhibit worse financial literacy than those who do not. Borrowers with poor financial literacy hold higher shares of high cost credit (such as home collected credit, mail order catalogue debt and payday loans) than those with higher literacy. We also show that individuals with poor financial literacy are more likely to lack confidence when interpreting credit terms, and to exhibit confusion over financial concepts. They are also less likely to engage in behaviour which might help them to improve their awareness of the credit market.