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| Author | : Astri Birgitta Chamberlain Muren |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 234 |
| Release | : 1989 |
| Genre | : |
| ISBN | : |
| Author | : Astri Birgitta Chamberlain Muren |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 234 |
| Release | : 1989 |
| Genre | : |
| ISBN | : |
| Author | : Hongyan Shi |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : |
| Release | : 2011 |
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This dissertation involves three essays, studying firms' decision-making on marketing mix variables. Specifically, the first essay (Chapter 2) studies the effects of distribution channels on firms' advertising content decision. In many markets, consumers may not have full information of product features and prices when they shop. While consumers can search to acquire such information, manufacturers and retailers often advertise price, product, or both types of information to help resolve consumers' uncertainty. This chapter studies manufacturers' and retailers' advertising content decisions in either a centralized channel or a decentralized channel, in a market where advertising affects consumers' search behaviors and purchase decisions. I show that in a decentralized channel, advertising may include more information than in a centralized channel. Specifically, when a retailer in a decentralized channel makes its advertising decision before the manufacturer and the retailer decide on prices, it prefers more price-product advertising than in a centralized channel; otherwise, it prefers more price-only advertising and more price-product advertising than in a centralized channel. I also show that in a decentralized channel where the manufacturer decides on product advertising and the retailer decides on price advertising, there will be more price-only advertising than in a centralized channel. Finally, I examine the consequent effects of advertising strategies in different distribution channels on channel members' profitability, consumer welfare and social welfare. The second essay (Chapter 3) studies the effects of channel structure and types of consumer heterogeneity on a manufacturer's product quality decision. I show that a manufacturer's product quality decision depends on both its channel structure and the type of consumer heterogeneity. When consumers are heterogeneous either vertically on their willingness-to-pay for product quality or horizontally on their transaction costs, a manufacturer will provide the same or lower product quality in a decentralized channel than in a centralized channel. However, when consumers are heterogeneous on both their willingness-to-pay for product quality and transaction costs, a manufacturer may even offer higher product quality in a decentralized channel than in a centralized channel under certain conditions, and consumers, as well as the distribution channel, can benefit from an increase of consumer transaction cost. The third essay (Chapter 4) studies how firms with high service quality (i.e. the high-type) can use tipping policy to signal their service quality and distinguish from firms with low service quality (i.e. the low-type) when consumers are comprised of informed and uninformed consumers. I characterize the conditions under which tipping policy together with complete information price can be effective signal device. In addition, I show that when the ratio of the informed consumers to uninformed consumers is low, if the high-type's optimal decision is to choose to have a tipping policy under complete information, it will signal with a tipping policy together with a distorted price. Furthermore, I show that even when the high-type's optimal decision is non-tipping policy under complete information, it might strategically adopt a tipping policy to signal its service quality.
| Author | : Pei Zhou |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 0 |
| Release | : 2023 |
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| ISBN | : |
Ensuring the safety and healthfulness of food purchases holds paramount significance for consumers, as it directly impacts not only their physical well-being but also their overall quality of life. Hence, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the factors that shape these choices becomes imperative for the promotion of public health and the prevention of diet-related diseases. This dissertation consists of three essays on food safety, health, and food marketing. It seeks to explore how consumers respond to food recalls, analyze the influence of emerging trends like online grocery shopping, product innovation, and food reformulation on the healthfulness of consumers' food purchases, and ultimately assess their impact on public health outcomes. The first essay examines the heterogeneous impact of various recall information on consumers' perceived health risks and quantifies the overall impact of food recalls on demand. Using the fresh meat market as a case study, this chapter formulates a structural random coefficient discrete choice model of consumer demand using Nielsen Retail Scanner Data from 2012 to 2016. Results show that both the number of recalls and the volume of food recalled have negative and significant effects on the demand. To minimize the negative impact of recalls, the highest priority should be given to preventing large-scale recalls, Class I recalls, product contamination recalls and recalls due to being produced without benefit of inspection or import violation. Food companies should proactively recall when problems arise. The second essay investigates the role of online grocery shopping in mediating the relationship between the food environment and the healthfulness of household food purchases, with a focus on disadvantaged groups. Using Nielsen Consumer Panel Data from 2015 to 2019, this chapter employs fixed effect models with instrument variables to address potential endogeneity associated with the local food environment and the adoption of online grocery shopping. Results suggest that online grocery services may worsen nutrition inequality linked to food environment disparities. Combining online grocery services with local in-store options can lead to improved diet quality. The third essay explores how nutrients, new ingredients, and health claims from product reformulation influence consumer decisions, dietary intake, and population health in the beverage market using a random coefficient discrete choice model and Nielsen Retail Scanner Data from 2015 to 2019. Results find that new ingredients that provide functionality have a significant positive impact on consumer choices. In addition, the use of health claims can significantly increase consumer demand for beverages. Further, the policy aimed at lowering the intake of one single nutrient may have an unintended spillover effect on other nutrient intakes, and policymakers should take a comprehensive approach and consider the broader nutrient impact of any policy aimed at reducing a specific nutrient.
| Author | : Koichi Yonezawa |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 191 |
| Release | : 2014 |
| Genre | : Consumer behavior |
| ISBN | : |
It is well understood that decisions made under uncertainty differ from those made without risk in important and significant ways. Yet, there is very little research into how uncertainty manifests itself in the most ubiquitous of decision-making environments: Consumers' day-to-day decisions over where to shop, and what to buy for their daily grocery needs. Facing a choice between stores that either offer relatively stable "everyday low prices" (EDLP) or variable prices that reflect aggressive promotion strategies (HILO), consumers have to choose stores under price-uncertainty. I find that consumers' attitudes toward risk are critically important in determining store-choice, and that heterogeneity in risk attitudes explains the co-existence of EDLP and HILO stores - an equilibrium that was previously explained in somewhat unsatisfying ways. After choosing a store, consumers face another source of risk. While knowing the quality or taste of established brands, consumers have very little information about new products. Consequently, consumers tend to choose smaller package sizes for new products, which limits their exposure to the risk that the product does not meet their prior expectations. While the observation that consumers purchase small amounts of new products is not new, I show how this practice is fully consistent with optimal purchase decision-making by utility-maximizing consumers. I then use this insight to explain how manufacturers of consumer packaged goods (CPGs) respond to higher production costs. Because consumers base their purchase decisions in part on package size, manufacturers can use package size as a competitive tool in order to raise margins in the face of higher production costs. While others have argued that manufacturers reduce package sizes as a means of raising unit-prices (prices per unit of volume) in a hidden way, I show that the more important effect is a competitive one: Changes in package size can soften price competition, so manufacturers need not rely on fooling consumers in order to pass-through cost increases through changes in package size. The broader implications of consumer behavior under risk are dramatic. First, risk perceptions affect consumers' store choice and product choice patterns in ways that can be exploited by both retailers and manufacturers. Second, strategic considerations prevent manufacturers from manipulating package size in ways that seem designed to trick consumers. Third, many services are also offered as packages, and also involve uncertainty, so the effects identified here are likely to be pervasive throughout the consumer economy.
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| Total Pages | : 0 |
| Release | : 2012 |
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This dissertation contains three essays on the effects of information in online markets. The first essay examines an online market for digital music and how consumers may learn from one another when making their decisions. In markets where a product is of unknown quality and consumers observe information about the previous actions of others, models of observational learning often predict herding behavior. The possible consequences of this herding behavior include consumers ignoring a high quality product and consumers spending resources on a low quality product (i.e., bad herds). In this essay, I estimate the probability of the former (bad herd on a high quality product) in an online digital music market named Amie Street Music. In addition, I examine the effect of moving from a fixed pricing scheme (iTunes, Amazon) to a demand-based pricing scheme (Amie Street) on the probability of a bad herd, expected consumer costs and expected long run revenue. I find that there is a 2% probability that consumers ignore a high quality song in the Amie Street market, compared to a 100% probability with a fixed price as low as 30 cents. Using bid data from 8,000 Chevrolet Corvettes sold on eBay, the second essay empirically tests Akerlof's (1970) hypothesis that the used car market is characterized by low quality and informational problems. The hypothesis states that the used market has a higher proportion of low quality cars than the new market and buyers account for the difference by discounting their value for a used car relative to a new car. This is tested by comparing bids on new and late model used 'Vettes. The paper finds little evidence of a premium for new 'Vettes. Two other tests are performed and results of these tests also show little evidence of information problems on eBay Motors. Finally, in the third essay, I test whether bidders shade their bids for Chevrolet Corvettes in response to changes in the supply of other Corvettes up for auction. The results suggest that bidders are shading their bids, even when the other cars up for auction are not perfect substitutes.
| Author | : Guangzhi Shang |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 0 |
| Release | : 2014 |
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| Author | : Madiha Zaffou |
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| Total Pages | : |
| Release | : 2016 |
| Genre | : Electronic dissertations |
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The difference in product attributes presented by different labels represents an important factor for consumers when making a purchase decision. Research has shown that a greater variety of options can cater to a wider range of tastes and preferences (Lancaster 1990). That is, with different product attributes, the quality of the product, as perceived by consumers, increases. However, providing consumers with more information on the product’s attributes does not necessarily imply a direct effect on their preference ordering. Other emotional triggers may drive the purchase decision and can be hard for the researcher to capture. The current dissertation continues a long line of previous work that have focused on consumer’s perceptions of different labels for both food and plants products, and how their perception of these labels can have a direct impact on their buying decision.
| Author | : Shweta Singh |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 198 |
| Release | : 2008 |
| Genre | : Finance companies |
| ISBN | : |
The third essay deals with consumer search for information and measuring the returns to search. In the past, results regarding the gains to search have been unclear and measures of returns to search have either been subjective or limited to price reductions. In this essay, we provide a more comprehensive approach to measuring returns to search. We measure returns to search in terms of the ability of consumers in buying a better quality product. We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate our conceptual model of returns to search. Our findings indicate that Internet users and more experienced and educated consumers tend to make more efficient choices while consumer efficiency goes down with age.
| Author | : Joseph E. Stiglitz |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 904 |
| Release | : 2009 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : 0199533717 |
The second in a series of six volumes containing a selection of Joseph Stiglitz's most important and widely cited work. Volume I set out the basic concepts underlying the economics of information. Volume II extends these concepts and applies them to a number of different settings in labour, capital, and product markets
