IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/umaesp/13742.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Imperfect Information, Consumer Theory, And Allocative Error In Consumption

Author

Listed:
  • Kinsey, Jean D.
  • Roe, Terry L.
  • Sexauer, Benjamin

Abstract

Traditional economic theory of the consumer assumes the existence of perfect information. However, in reality this assumption is rarely fulfilled. In this paper a model is presented which relaxes this assumption and explicitly introduces the possibility of imperfect information into the theory of consumer behavior. Specifically, the focus is on consumer decision making when the utility realized form a bundle of goods and services can be different from the utility anticipated during the budget allocation process.

Suggested Citation

  • Kinsey, Jean D. & Roe, Terry L. & Sexauer, Benjamin, 1980. "Imperfect Information, Consumer Theory, And Allocative Error In Consumption," Staff Papers 13742, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:umaesp:13742
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.13742
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/13742/files/21290.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.13742?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Claude S. Colantoni & Otto A. Davis & Malati Swaminuthan, 1976. "Imperfect Consumers and Welfare Comparisons of Policies Concerning Information and Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(2), pages 602-615, Autumn.
    2. Nelson, Phillip, 1970. "Information and Consumer Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 311-329, March-Apr.
    3. Steven Salop & Joseph Stiglitz, 1977. "Bargains and Ripoffs: A Model of Monopolistically Competitive Price Dispersion," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 493-510.
    4. Chipman, John S & Moore, James C, 1980. "Compensating Variation, Consumer's Surplus, and Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 933-949, December.
    5. John W. Pratt & David A. Wise & Richard Zeckhauser, 1979. "Price Differences in almost Competitive Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(2), pages 189-211.
    6. Kelvin J. Lancaster, 1966. "A New Approach to Consumer Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74, pages 132-132.
    7. Karni, Edi & Schwartz, Aba, 1977. "Search theory: The case of search with uncertain recall," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 38-52, October.
    8. Stigler, George J., 2011. "Economics of Information," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 35-49.
    9. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1973. "Where Are We in the Theory of Information?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 31-39, May.
    10. Landsberger, Michael & Peled, Dan, 1977. "Duration of offers, price structure, and the gain from search," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 17-37, October.
    11. Auld, Douglas A L, 1972. "Imperfect Knowledge and the New Theory of Demand," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(6), pages 1287-1294, Nov.-Dec..
    12. Peltzman, Sam, 1973. "An Evaluation of Consumer Protection Legislation: The 1962 Drug Amendments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(5), pages 1049-1091, Sept.-Oct.
    13. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1971. "Increasing risk II: Its economic consequences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 66-84, March.
    14. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "Increasing risk: I. A definition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 225-243, September.
    15. Cross, John G, 1979. "Reinforcement Theory and the Consumer Model," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(2), pages 190-198, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lashawn Richburg Hayes, 2000. "Do the Poor Pay More? An Empirical Investigation of Price Dispersion in Food Retailing," Working Papers 825, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    2. Paul L. Joskow & Roger G. Noll, 1981. "Regulation in Theory and Practice: An Overview," NBER Chapters, in: Studies in Public Regulation, pages 1-78, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Justin P. Johnson & David P. Myatt, 2006. "On the Simple Economics of Advertising, Marketing, and Product Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 756-784, June.
    4. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, January.
    5. Alessandro Bonanno & Francesco Bimbo & Marco Costanigro & Alfons Oude Lansink & Rosaria Viscecchia, 2019. "Credence attributes and the quest for a higher price – a hedonic stochastic frontier approach," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 46(2), pages 163-192.
    6. Eaton B. Curtis & MacDonald Ian A. & Meriluoto Laura, 2010. "Existence Advertising, Price Competition and Asymmetric Market Structure," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-29, August.
    7. Roe, Terry L. & Sexauer, Benjamin & Kinsey, Jean D., 1981. "The Cost Of Inaccurate Consumer Information: The Case Of The Epa Mileage Figures," Staff Papers 13511, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    8. Lashawn Richburg Hayes, 2000. "Do the Poor Pay More? An Empirical Investigation of Price Dispersion in Food Retailing," Working Papers 825, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    9. Jeanne DALL'ORSO & Romain GAURIOT & Lionel PAGE, 2016. "Disappointment looms around the corner: Visibility and local businesses' market power," QuBE Working Papers 041, QUT Business School.
    10. Rodríguez, Elsa Mirta M. & Lacaze, María Victoria & Lupín, Beatriz, 2007. "Willingness to pay for organic food in Argentina: evidence from a consumer survey," Nülan. Deposited Documents 1300, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    11. Karsten Mause, 2009. "Too Much Competition in Higher Education? Some Conceptual Remarks on the Excessive‐Signaling Hypothesis," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(5), pages 1107-1133, November.
    12. Vincenzo Asero & Sebastiano Patti, 2009. "Asymmetric Information, Tourist Satisfaction and Quality in Tourism," Annals of the University of Petrosani, Economics, University of Petrosani, Romania, vol. 9(3), pages 5-16.
    13. Sexton, Richard J., 1979. "A Theory On Information And Its Application To The Effect Of Labeling On Food Products," Staff Papers 13450, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    14. Christian Gormsen, 2012. "Intransparent Markets and Intra-Industry Trade," Post-Print halshs-00678264, HAL.
    15. Sergey MALAKHOV, 2016. "Law of One Price and Optimal Consumption-Leisure Choice Under Price Dispersion," Expert Journal of Economics, Sprint Investify, vol. 4(1), pages 1-8.
    16. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:849-919 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Gormsen, Christian, 2009. "Intransparent Markets and Intra-Industry Trade," Working Papers 09-20, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    18. Fredriksen, Kaja & Runst, Petrik & Bizer, Kilian, 2017. "Masterful Meisters? Voluntary Certification and Quality in the German Crafts Sector," ifh Working Papers 3 (2017), Volkswirtschaftliches Institut für Mittelstand und Handwerk an der Universität Göttingen (ifh), revised 2017.
    19. Marcu, Emanuel & Noussair, Charles, 2018. "Sequential Search with a Price Freeze Option - Theory and Experimental Evidence," Other publications TiSEM dacf4815-c001-44c3-bda3-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Grolleau, Gilles & Caswell, Julie A., 2006. "Interaction Between Food Attributes in Markets: The Case of Environmental Labeling," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 31(3), pages 1-14, December.
    21. Ramnath K. Chellappa & Raymond G. Sin & S. Siddarth, 2011. "Price Formats as a Source of Price Dispersion: A Study of Online and Offline Prices in the Domestic U.S. Airline Markets," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 83-98, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer/Household Economics;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:umaesp:13742. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/daumnus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.