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Selling to Overconfident Consumers

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  • Michael D. Grubb

Abstract

Consumers may overestimate the precision of their demand forecasts. This overconfidence creates an incentive for both monopolists and competitive firms to offer tariffs with included quantities at zero marginal cost, followed by steep marginal charges. This matches observed cellular phone service pricing plans in the United States and elsewhere. An alternative explanation with common priors can be ruled out in favor of overconfidence based on observed customer usage patterns for a major US cellular phone service provider. The model can be reinterpreted to explain the use of flat rates and late fees in rental markets, and teaser rates on loans. Nevertheless, firms may benefit from consumers losing their overconfidence. (JEL D12, L11, L96)

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 99 (2009)
Issue (Month): 5 (December)
Pages: 1770-1807

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Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:99:y:2009:i:5:p:1770-1807

Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.99.5.1770
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Natalia Shestakova, 2010. "Pricing Scheme Choice: How Process Affects Outcome," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp411, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economic Institute, Prague.
  2. Natalia Shestakova, 2010. "Overcoming Consumer Biases in the Choice of Pricing Schemes: A Lab Experiment," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp418, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economic Institute, Prague.
  3. Steffen Huck & Jidong Zhou, 2011. "Consumer Behavioural Biases in Competition: A Survey," Working Papers 11-16, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
  4. Rosston, Gregory L. & Topper, Michael D., 2010. "An antitrust analysis of the case for wireless network neutrality," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 103-119, March.
  5. Eisenhuth, Roland, 2010. "Auction Design with Loss Averse Bidders: The Optimality of All Pay Mechanisms," MPRA Paper 23357, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  6. Herweg, Fabian & Müller, Daniel, 2011. "Overconfidence in the Market for Lemons," Discussion Papers in Economics 12411, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
  7. Luttmer, Erzo F. P. & Zeckhauser, Richard, 2008. "Schedule Selection by Agents: from Price Plans to Tax Tables," Working Paper Series rwp08-008, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
  8. Karle, Heiko & Peitz, Martin, 2010. "Pricing and Information Disclosure in Markets with Loss-Averse Consumers," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 312, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
  9. Andersson, Kjetil & Foros, Øystein & Hansen, Bjørn, 2012. "Empirical evidence on the relationship between mobile termination rates and firms’ profit," Discussion Papers 2012/10, Department of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics.
  10. X. Wang & Bill Yang, 2010. "The sunk-cost effect and optimal two-part pricing," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 101(2), pages 133-148, October.

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