Effects of Product Availability: Experimental Evidence
Abstract
Product availability impacts many industries such as transportation, events, and retail, yet little empirical evidence documents the importance of stocking decisions for firm profits, vertical relationships, or consumers. We conduct several experiments, exogenously removing top-selling products from a set of vending machines and analyzing substitution patterns and profit impacts of the changed product availability using nonparametric analyses and structural demand estimation. We find substantial switching to alternate products, and evidence of misaligned incentives between upstream and downstream firms in the choice of which products to carry. We discuss the trade-offs of both empirical approaches for analyzing product availability effects generally.Download Info
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Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 16506.Length:
Date of creation: Oct 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16506
Note: IO
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Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Christopher T. Conlon & Julie Holland Mortimer, 2010. "Effects of Product Availability: Experimental Evidence," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 798, Boston College Department of Economics.
- L0 - Industrial Organization - - General
References
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