IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/econwp/383.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Competitive attention, Superstars and the Long Tail

Author

Listed:
  • Andreas Hefti
  • Julia Lareida

Abstract

We propose a model of competitive attention based on two key premises: i) People have limited information processing capacities and ii) consideration sets are formed according to relative salience. The equilibrium predictions we obtain can help to understand, and connect, diverse empirical phenomena, such as the Paradox of Choices, the Power Law dispersions of key market data (sales, profits, online clicks,...), the relation between advertising expenditures and market shares, the evolution of market inequality, or why evidence favoring a “Long Tail” effect is mixed at best.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Hefti & Julia Lareida, 2021. "Competitive attention, Superstars and the Long Tail," ECON - Working Papers 383, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:zur:econwp:383
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/202542/1/econwp383.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Valentino Dardanoni & Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti & Christopher J. Tyson, 2020. "Inferring Cognitive Heterogeneity From Aggregate Choices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 1269-1296, May.
    2. Tucker, Catherine & Zhang, Juanjuan, 2007. "Long Tail or Steep Tail? A Field Investigation into How Online Popularity Information Affects the Distribution of Customer Choices," Working papers 39811, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    3. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2014. "Stochastic Choice and Consideration Sets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(3), pages 1153-1176, May.
    4. Geoffroy de Clippel & Kfir Eliaz & Kareen Rozen, 2014. "Competing for Consumer Inattention," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(6), pages 1203-1234.
    5. Heski Bar-Isaac & Guillermo Caruana & Vicente Cunat, 2012. "Search, Design, and Market Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 1140-1160, April.
    6. Daniel Fleder & Kartik Hosanagar, 2009. "Blockbuster Culture's Next Rise or Fall: The Impact of Recommender Systems on Sales Diversity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 697-712, May.
    7. Andreas Hefti & Shuo Liu & Armin Schmutzler, 2022. "Preferences, Confusion and Competition," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(645), pages 1852-1881.
    8. Hinz, Oliver & Eckert, Jochen & Skiera, Bernd, 2011. "Drivers of the Long Tail Phenomenon: An Empirical Analysis," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 56544, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    9. Blank, Aharon & Solomon, Sorin, 2000. "Power laws in cities population, financial markets and internet sites (scaling in systems with a variable number of components)," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 287(1), pages 279-288.
    10. Ganesh Iyer & David Soberman & J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2005. "The Targeting of Advertising," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 461-476, May.
    11. Sendhil Mullainathan & Joshua Schwartzstein & Andrei Shleifer, 2008. "Coarse Thinking and Persuasion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 577-619.
    12. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2016. "Competition for Attention," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(2), pages 481-513.
    13. Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Power Laws in Economics: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 185-206, Winter.
    14. Andreas Hefti & Julian Teichgräber, 2021. "Inequality in models with a competition for market shares," ECON - Working Papers 375, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    15. Tom Fangyun Tan & Serguei Netessine & Lorin Hitt, 2017. "Is Tom Cruise Threatened? An Empirical Study of the Impact of Product Variety on Demand Concentration," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 643-660, September.
    16. Dennis H. Gensch, 1987. "A Two-Stage Disaggregate Attribute Choice Model," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(3), pages 223-239.
    17. Crawford, G. Christopher & Aguinis, Herman & Lichtenstein, Benyamin & Davidsson, Per & McKelvey, Bill, 2015. "Power law distributions in entrepreneurship: Implications for theory and research," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 696-713.
    18. Astorne-Figari, Carmen & López, José Joaquín & Yankelevich, Aleksandr, 2019. "Advertising for consideration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 653-669.
    19. Bernardo A. Huberman, 2003. "The Laws of the Web: Patterns in the Ecology of Information," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582252, December.
    20. Falkinger, Josef, 2007. "Attention economies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 266-294, March.
    21. Gaffeo, Edoardo & Gallegati, Mauro & Palestrini, Antonio, 2003. "On the size distribution of firms: additional evidence from the G7 countries," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 324(1), pages 117-123.
    22. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    23. Michael Grubb, 2015. "Failing to Choose the Best Price: Theory, Evidence, and Policy," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 47(3), pages 303-340, November.
    24. Babur De Los Santos & Ali Hortacsu & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2012. "Testing Models of Consumer Search Using Data on Web Browsing and Purchasing Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2955-2980, October.
    25. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    26. Erik Brynjolfsson & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Michael D. Smith, 2003. "Consumer Surplus in the Digital Economy: Estimating the Value of Increased Product Variety at Online Booksellers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1580-1596, November.
    27. Benjamin Scheibehenne & Rainer Greifeneder & Peter M. Todd, 2010. "Can There Ever Be Too Many Options? A Meta-Analytic Review of Choice Overload," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 37(3), pages 409-425, October.
    28. Kelvin Lancaster, 1990. "The Economics of Product Variety: A Survey," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 9(3), pages 189-206.
    29. St�phanie Peltier & François Moreau, 2012. "Internet and the ‘Long Tail versus superstar effect’ debate: evidence from the French book market," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(8), pages 711-715, May.
    30. Gérard P. Cachon & Christian Terwiesch & Yi Xu, 2008. "On the Effects of Consumer Search and Firm Entry in a Multiproduct Competitive Market," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 461-473, 05-06.
    31. Michael R. Baye & J. Rupert J. Gatti & Paul Kattuman & John Morgan, 2009. "Clicks, Discontinuities, and Firm Demand Online," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 935-975, December.
    32. Gene M. Grossman & Carl Shapiro, 1984. "Informative Advertising with Differentiated Products," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(1), pages 63-81.
    33. Zhang, Jianhua & Chen, Qinghua & Wang, Yougui, 2009. "Zipf distribution in top Chinese firms and an economic explanation," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 388(10), pages 2020-2024.
    34. Hisano, Ryohei & Mizuno, Takayuki, 2011. "Sales distribution of consumer electronics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(2), pages 309-318.
    35. Reed, William J., 2001. "The Pareto, Zipf and other power laws," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 15-19, December.
    36. Erik Brynjolfsson & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Duncan Simester, 2011. "Goodbye Pareto Principle, Hello Long Tail: The Effect of Search Costs on the Concentration of Product Sales," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(8), pages 1373-1386, August.
    37. Ordanini, Andrea & Nunes, Joseph C., 2016. "From fewer blockbusters by more superstars to more blockbusters by fewer superstars: How technological innovation has impacted convergence on the music chart," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 297-313.
    38. Bettman, James R & Luce, Mary Frances & Payne, John W, 1998. "Constructive Consumer Choice Processes," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 25(3), pages 187-217, December.
    39. Michael D. Smith & Erik Brynjolfsson, 2001. "Consumer Decision-making at an Internet Shopbot: Brand Still Matters," NBER Chapters, in: E-commerce, pages 541-558, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Glenn Ellison & Sara Fisher Ellison, 2009. "Search, Obfuscation, and Price Elasticities on the Internet," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 427-452, March.
    41. Lurie, Nicholas H, 2004. "Decision Making in Information-Rich Environments: The Role of Information Structure," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 30(4), pages 473-486, March.
    42. Michael D. Smith & Erik Brynjolfsson, 2001. "Consumer Decision-making at an Internet Shopbot: Brand Still Matters," NBER Chapters, in: E-commerce, pages 541-558, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    43. Malhotra, Naresh K, 1982. "Information Load and Consumer Decision Making," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 8(4), pages 419-430, March.
    44. Hauser, John R & Wernerfelt, Birger, 1990. "An Evaluation Cost Model of Consideration Sets," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(4), pages 393-408, March.
    45. Hefti, Andreas, 2016. "On the relationship between uniqueness and stability in sum-aggregative, symmetric and general differentiable games," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 83-96.
    46. Anindya Ghose & Sha Yang, 2009. "An Empirical Analysis of Search Engine Advertising: Sponsored Search in Electronic Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(10), pages 1605-1622, October.
    47. Bagwell, Kyle, 2007. "The Economic Analysis of Advertising," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 28, pages 1701-1844, Elsevier.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andreas Hefti & Julian Teichgräber, 2021. "Inequality in models with a competition for market shares," ECON - Working Papers 375, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.

    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. Hefti, Andreas, 2018. "Limited attention, competition and welfare," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 318-359.
    2. Andreas Hefti & Shuo Liu & Armin Schmutzler, 2022. "Preferences, Confusion and Competition," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(645), pages 1852-1881.
    3. Helmers, Christian & Krishnan, Pramila & Patnam, Manasa, 2019. "Attention and saliency on the internet: Evidence from an online recommendation system," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 216-242.
    4. Ratchford, Brian & Soysal, Gonca & Zentner, Alejandro & Gauri, Dinesh K., 2022. "Online and offline retailing: What we know and directions for future research," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 152-177.
    5. Tom Fangyun Tan & Serguei Netessine & Lorin Hitt, 2017. "Is Tom Cruise Threatened? An Empirical Study of the Impact of Product Variety on Demand Concentration," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 643-660, September.
    6. Andreas M. Hefti, 2011. "Attention competition," ECON - Working Papers 028, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    7. Peter Mayerhofer & Peter Huber & Dieter Pennerstorfer, 2017. "Handel und Einzelhandel im Wiener Beschäftigungssystem. Arbeitsmarktrelevanz, Arbeitsplatzcharakteristika, absehbare Herausforderungen," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 61951, February.
    8. Samir Mamadehussene, 2020. "The Interplay Between Obfuscation and Prominence in Price Comparison Platforms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4843-4862, October.
    9. Yangguang Huang, 2021. "Search Algorithm and Sales on Online Platforms: Evidence from Food Delivery Platforms," HKUST CEP Working Papers Series 202101, HKUST Center for Economic Policy.
    10. Andreas Hefti & Shuo Liu, 2016. "Targeted information and limited attention," ECON - Working Papers 230, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Dec 2019.
    11. Michael Grubb, 2015. "Failing to Choose the Best Price: Theory, Evidence, and Policy," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 47(3), pages 303-340, November.
    12. Saur, Marc P. & Schlatterer, Markus G. & Schmitt, Stefanie Y., 2022. "Limited perception and price discrimination in a model of horizontal product differentiation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 151-168.
    13. Hartmut Egger & Josef Falkinger, 2016. "Limited Consumer Attention in International Trade," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 1096-1128, November.
    14. Alejandro Zentner & Michael Smith & Cuneyd Kaya, 2013. "How Video Rental Patterns Change as Consumers Move Online," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(11), pages 2622-2634, November.
    15. Gal OEstreicher-Singer & Barak Libai, 2011. "Assessing Value in Product Networks," Working Papers 11-29, NET Institute, revised Sep 2011.
    16. Florian Morath & Johannes Münster, 2018. "Online Shopping and Platform Design with Ex Ante Registration Requirements," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 360-380, January.
    17. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Michael R. Baye & Babur De los Santos & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2016. "Search Engine Optimization: What Drives Organic Traffic to Retail Sites?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 6-31, March.
    19. Bing Jing, 2016. "Lowering Customer Evaluation Costs, Product Differentiation, and Price Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(1), pages 113-127, January.
    20. Steel, Will & Daglish, Toby & Marriott, Lisa & Gemmell, Norman & Howell, Bronwyn, 2013. "E-Commerce and its effect upon the Retail Industry and Government Revenue," Working Paper Series 4333, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Attention; choice overload; consideration sets; Power Law; Superstar; Long Tail; Matthew Effect;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • E71 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on the Macro Economy
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • M37 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Advertising

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zur:econwp:383. 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: Severin Oswald (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/seizhch.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.