Strategic Inattention in Product Search

Strategic Inattention in Product Search
Author: Adrian Hillenbrand
Publisher:
Total Pages: 46
Release: 2019
Genre:
ISBN:

Rapid technological developments in online markets fundamentally change the relationship between consumers and sellers. Online platforms can now easily gather data about the consumer and his search behavior, that allow for price discrimination. Therefore the consumers' product search becomes a strategic choice. Consumers face a trade-off: Search intensely and receive a better fit at a potentially higher price or restrict search behavior - be strategically inattentive - and receive a worse fit, but maybe a better deal. We study the resulting strategic buyer-seller interaction theoretically as well as experimentally. Our experimental results shed a critical light on the added value for consumers through the rise of online platforms.

Consumer Inattention, Uncertainty, and Marketing Strategy

Consumer Inattention, Uncertainty, and Marketing Strategy
Author: Xinyu Cao
Publisher:
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

This dissertation investigates the implications of consumer inattention and uncertainty for firms' advertising and pricing decisions. The first chapter is an overview of the problems addressed in the dissertation and the main findings. The second chapter develops a theory-based, cost-effective method to estimate the demand for new products using choice experiments. The premise is that consumers are uncertain about their valuation of a new product and need to spend costly effort to learn their valuation. The effort consumers spend is affected by the probability of their choice being realized, and as a result will change the manifested demand curve derived from choice experiments. We run a large-scale choice experiment on a mobile game platform, where we randomize the price and realization probability of a new product. Data support our theoretical hypothesis. We then estimate a structural model of consumer decisions. The structural estimates allow us to accurately infer actual demand based on choice experiments of small to moderate realization probabilities. The third chapter examines firms' advertising strategy on social media under consumers' limited attention. Advertising on social media faces a new challenge as consumers can actively select which advertisers to follow. A Bayesian learning model suggests that consumers with limited attention may rationally choose to unfollow a firm. This happens if consumers already know about the firm's value well and if the firm advertises too intensely. However, we find that intensive advertising may still be the optimal strategy for firms. If a firm is perceived as providing low value, it will want to advertise aggressively to change consumers' mind; if a firm is perceived as providing higher value, it will also want to advertise intensively, but in an effort to crowd-out advertising messages from its competitors. Tracking company accounts of 49 TV shows on the most popular tweeting website in China provides empirical evidence that both popular and non-popular firms advertise intensively, although the number of followers does go down when a firm advertises too intensively. The fourth chapter investigates channel coordination in search advertising. Given that consumers have limited attention, there are only a limited number of advertising slots on search engine platforms that can attract positive number of clicks. A manufacturer can sponsor retailers to advertise its products while at the same time compete with them in a position auction with limited number of slots. We prescribe the optimal cooperative search advertising strategies for the manufacturer. We find that it may not be optimal for a manufacturer to cooperate with all of its retailers, even when these retailers are ex ante the same. This finding reflects the manufacturer's tradeoff between higher demand and higher bidding cost caused by more intensified competition. With two asymmetric retailers, the manufacturer should support the retailer with the higher channel profit per click to get a higher position than the other retailer. The manufacturer should take a higher position than a retailer when its profit per click via direct sales exceeds the channel profit per click of the retailer. We also investigate how a manufacturer uses both wholesale and advertising contracts to coordinate channels with endogenous retail prices.

Strategic Inattention, Inflation Dynamics, and the Non-Neutrality of Money

Strategic Inattention, Inflation Dynamics, and the Non-Neutrality of Money
Author: Hassan Afrouzi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023
Genre: Competition
ISBN:

This paper studies how competition affects firms' expectations in a new dynamic general equilibrium model with rational inattention and oligopolistic competition where firms acquire information about their competitors' beliefs. In the model, firms with fewer competitors are less attentive to aggregate variables -- a novel prediction supported by survey evidence. A calibrated version of the model matches the relationship between firms' numbers of competitors and their uncertainty about aggregate inflation as a non-targeted moment. A quantitative exercise reveals that firms' strategic inattention to aggregates significantly amplifies monetary non-neutrality and shifts output response disproportionately towards less competitive oligopolies by distorting relative prices.

Strategic Pricing with Rational Inattention to Quality

Strategic Pricing with Rational Inattention to Quality
Author: Daniel Martin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 27
Release: 2017
Genre:
ISBN:

Using a standard strategic pricing game, I determine how sellers set prices when facing buyers who are “rationally inattentive” to information about product quality. Two cases are studied: strategically sophisticated buyers who are rationally inattentive to exogenous information about quality and strategically naïve buyers who are rationally inattentive to strategic information about quality. In both cases, there exists an equilibrium where high quality sellers price high and low quality sellers mimic them by pricing high with a positive probability. This mimicking rate is uniquely identified and determines the informativeness of prices. In general, a drop in the marginal cost of attention results in more informative prices, but I identify conditions for which a drop in the marginal cost of attention can result in less informative prices.

Information Choice in Macroeconomics and Finance

Information Choice in Macroeconomics and Finance
Author: Laura L. Veldkamp
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2011-08-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 140084049X

An authoritative graduate textbook on information choice, an exciting frontier of research in economics and finance Most theories in economics and finance predict what people will do, given what they know about the world around them. But what do people know about their environments? The study of information choice seeks to answer this question, explaining why economic players know what they know—and how the information they have affects collective outcomes. Instead of assuming what people do or don't know, information choice asks what people would choose to know. Then it predicts what, given that information, they would choose to do. In this textbook, Laura Veldkamp introduces graduate students in economics and finance to this important new research. The book illustrates how information choice is used to answer questions in monetary economics, portfolio choice theory, business cycle theory, international finance, asset pricing, and other areas. It shows how to build and test applied theory models with information frictions. And it covers recent work on topics such as rational inattention, information markets, and strategic games with heterogeneous information. Illustrates how information choice is used to answer questions in monetary economics, portfolio choice theory, business cycle theory, international finance, asset pricing, and other areas Teaches how to build and test applied theory models with information frictions Covers recent research on topics such as rational inattention, information markets, and strategic games with heterogeneous information

To Know Or Not To Know

To Know Or Not To Know
Author: Roberto Cellini
Publisher:
Total Pages: 27
Release: 2015
Genre:
ISBN:

We model an industry in which a discrete number of firms choose the output of their differentiated products deciding whether or not to consider the impact of their decisions on aggregate output. We show that two threshold numbers of firms exist such that: below the lower one there is a unique equilibrium in which all firms consider their aggregate impact as in standard oligopoly; above the higher threshold there is a unique equilibrium in which all firms disregard that impact as in standard monopolistic competition; between the two thresholds there are two equilibria, one in which all firms consider their aggregate impact and the other in which they do not. We then show that our model of 'strategic inattention' is isomorphic to a model of 'strategic delegation' with managerial compensation based on relative profit performance.

Handbook of Behavioral Economics - Foundations and Applications 1

Handbook of Behavioral Economics - Foundations and Applications 1
Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 749
Release: 2018-09-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0444633898

Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Foundations and Applications presents the concepts and tools of behavioral economics. Its authors are all economists who share a belief that the objective of behavioral economics is to enrich, rather than to destroy or replace, standard economics. They provide authoritative perspectives on the value to economic inquiry of insights gained from psychology. Specific chapters in this first volume cover reference-dependent preferences, asset markets, household finance, corporate finance, public economics, industrial organization, and structural behavioural economics. This Handbook provides authoritative summaries by experts in respective subfields regarding where behavioral economics has been; what it has so far accomplished; and its promise for the future. This taking-stock is just what Behavioral Economics needs at this stage of its so-far successful career. Helps academic and non-academic economists understand recent, rapid changes in theoretical and empirical advances within behavioral economics Designed for economists already convinced of the benefits of behavioral economics and mainstream economists who feel threatened by new developments in behavioral economics Written for those who wish to become quickly acquainted with behavioral economics

Pedretti's Occupational Therapy - E-Book

Pedretti's Occupational Therapy - E-Book
Author: Heidi McHugh Pendleton
Publisher: Elsevier Health Sciences
Total Pages: 1264
Release: 2017-03-10
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 032333928X

Pedretti’s Occupational Therapy: Practice Skills for Physical Dysfunction, 8th Edition prepares you for occupational therapy practice with adults who have physical disabilities. This cornerstone text provides a foundation for the development of clinical reasoning skills in a comprehensive, case-based learning approach to physical dysfunction. New full color photos and helpful pedagogy, including threaded case studies, OT Practice Notes, ethical considerations, and end-of-chapter review questions, reinforce learning, enhance retention, and prompt you to apply principles in a clinical setting. UNIQUE! Threaded case studies, woven throughout each chapter, help you apply concepts to real-life clinical practice. UNIQUE! Ethical Considerations boxes highlight the key ethical concerns of treatment options so you can practice ethically. UNIQUE! OT Practice Notes convey important considerations for professional practice. Focuses on the occupational therapist’s role in health and wellness, which the OTA has identified as a key practice area in the 21st century. Information on prevention, rather than simply intervention or treatment, shows how OTs can take a proactive role in patient care. Evidence-based content included throughout, especially in regards to evaluation and intervention. Content on occupational therapy’s commitment to considering cultural and ethnic diversity in every chapter. Key terms, chapter outlines, chapter objectives lay out the information you can expect to learn from each chapter.