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Tenure Dependence in Consumer-Firm Relationships: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Departures from Automobile Insurance Firms

Author

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  • Mark Israel

    (Northwestern University)

Abstract

A typical pattern in markets featuring long-term consumer-firm relationships is for departure probabilities to decline with tenure. A crucial question is whether this actually implies increasing consumer preference for firms. If so, firms should actively try to convince consumers to remain through the early periods of the relationship and should enter new markets quickly. However, the pattern can also be explained by selection on unobserved heterogeneity. The challenge is to use the data available in these markets--generally details on the consumers of one firm--to distinguish between these explanations. I rely on individual price histories in auto insurance. Findings include an economically relevant level of both relationship effects and heterogeneity, but a much more important role for heterogeneity.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Israel, 2005. "Tenure Dependence in Consumer-Firm Relationships: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Departures from Automobile Insurance Firms," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 165-192, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:rje:randje:v:36:y:2005:1:p:165-192
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Steven T Berry & Giovanni Compiani, 2023. "An Instrumental Variable Approach to Dynamic Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(4), pages 1724-1758.
    2. Alma Cohen & Peter Siegelman, 2010. "Testing for Adverse Selection in Insurance Markets," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 77(1), pages 39-84, March.
    3. Jeffrey Prince & Shane Greenstein, 2014. "Does Service Bundling Reduce Churn?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 839-875, December.
    4. Alma Cohen, 2012. "Asymmetric Learning in Repeated Contracting: An Empirical Study," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 419-432, May.
    5. Mark Israel, 2005. "Services as Experience Goods: An Empirical Examination of Consumer Learning in Automobile Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1444-1463, December.
    6. Fader, Peter S. & Hardie, Bruce G.S. & Liu, Yuzhou & Davin, Joseph & Steenburgh, Thomas, 2018. "“How to Project Customer Retention” Revisited: The Role of Duration Dependence," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-16.
    7. Lex, Christoph & Tennyson, Sharon, 2021. "EU intermediary regulation and its impact on insurance agent quality: Evidence from Germany," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    8. Elisabeth Honka, 2014. "Quantifying search and switching costs in the US auto insurance industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(4), pages 847-884, December.
    9. Yi-Lin Tsai & Elisabeth Honka, 2021. "Informational and Noninformational Advertising Content," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(6), pages 1030-1058, November.
    10. Yukako Ono & Victor Stango, 2005. "Supplier switching and outsourcing," Working Paper Series WP-05-22, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    11. Miguel Flores & Catherine Waddams Price, 2013. "Consumer behaviour in the British retail electricity market," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2013-10, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    12. K. Sudhir & Nathan Yang, 2014. "Exploiting the Choice-Consumption Mismatch: A New Approach to Disentangle State Dependence and Heterogeneity," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1941, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis Insurance; Insurance Companies Marketing Automobile Insurance; Consumer; Insurance; Preference;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing

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