The Value of Information for Selected Appliances

A model expressing the relation between gains to search and a consumer's preference function is developed. For four of five appliances to which the model was applied, extensive search would not be worthwhile for a consumer whose preferences approximate the market hedonic price function.

[1]  P. Nelson Advertising as Information , 1974, Journal of Political Economy.

[2]  S. Rosen Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition , 1974, Journal of Political Economy.

[3]  Ruby Turner Morris,et al.  The Chaos of Competition Indicated by Consumer Reports , 1969 .

[4]  J. Stiglitz,et al.  Bargains and Ripoffs: A Model of Monopolistically Competitive Price Dispersion , 1977 .

[5]  J. E. Swan,et al.  Price–Product Performance Competition between Retailer and Manufacturer Brands , 1974 .

[6]  Allen F. Jung Major Appliance Prices in the Chicago Area , 1977 .

[7]  J. Claxton,et al.  A Taxonomy of Prepurchase Information Gathering Patterns , 1974 .

[8]  Manfred Kochen,et al.  On the economics of information , 1972, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[9]  R. Staelin,et al.  Prepurchase Information Seeking for New Cars and Major Household Appliances , 1972 .

[10]  P. Nelson Information and Consumer Behavior , 1970, Journal of Political Economy.

[11]  Allen F. Jung Price Variations on Automatic Washing Machines in Chicago, Illinois, Among Different Types of Retail Outlets , 1958 .

[12]  J. Newman,et al.  Measuring Prepurchase Information Seeking , 1975 .

[13]  Brian T. Ratchford,et al.  Factors affecting consumers' use of information sources , 1976 .

[14]  Willem Frederik van Raaij,et al.  Consumer choice behavior : an information-processing approach , 1977 .

[15]  Zvi Griliches,et al.  Price Indexes and Quality Change: Studies in New Methods of Measurement , 1971 .