Do consumers take advantage of common pricing standards? An experimental investigation

These data were generated by the experiment reported in the paper 'Do consumers take advantage of common pricing standards? An experimental investigation', by Robert Sugden and Jiwei Zheng, forthcoming in Management Science. The experiment investigates consumers' responses to problems of price comparison when some but not all prices are

Gaudeul and Sugden have hypothesized that, when some but not all competing products are priced in a common standard, consumers who are liable to make errors in cross-standard price comparisons use decision rules that discriminate in favor of common-standard offers. Such behavior incentivizes sellers to use common standards. We report an experimental test of this hypothesis, using choice tasks similar to those represented in the Gaudeul–Sugden model. We found that offers priced in common standards were more likely to inspected but less likely to be chosen, and that subjects gained little benefit from common pricing standards that applied to some but not all offers. Most subjects used ‘dominance editing’ operations which eliminated transparently dominated offers, either as an initial shortlisting device or while offers were being sorted. Because these operations discriminate against common-standard offers, their use incentivizes sellers not to use common standards. <p>This network project brings together economists, psychologists, computer and complexity scientists from three leading centres for behavioural social science at Nottigham, Warwick and UEA. This group will lead a research programme with two broad objectives: (1) to develop and test cross-disciplinary models of human behaviour and behaviour change and (2) to draw out their implications for the formulation and evaluation of public policy.

Foundational research will focus on three inter-related themes: (1) understanding individual behaviour and behaviour change; (2) understanding social and interactive behaviour; (3) rethinking the foundations of policy analysis.

The project will explore implications of the basic science for policy via a series of applied projects connecting naturally with the three themes. These will include: the determinants of consumer credit behaviour, the formation of social values and strategies for evaluation of policies affecting health and safety.

The research will integrate theoretical perspectives from multiple disciplines and utilize a wide range of complementary methodologies including: theoretical modeling of individuals, groups and complex systems; conceptual analysis; lab and field experiments; analysis of large data sets.

The Network will promote high quality cross-disciplinary research and serve as a policy forum for understanding behaviour and behaviour change.</p>

这些数据源自Robert Sugden与Jiwei Zheng的论文《消费者会利用常见定价标准吗？一项实验研究》中报告的实验，该论文即将发表于《管理科学》。该实验旨在探究当部分而非全部价格采用通用标准定价时，消费者对价格比较问题的反应。

Gaudeul与Sugden提出假设：当部分而非全部竞争产品采用通用标准定价时，在跨标准价格比较中易出现错误的消费者会使用倾向于偏好通用标准选项的决策规则。此类行为会激励卖家采用通用标准。我们报告了对该假设的实验检验，所使用的选择任务与Gaudeul–Sugden模型中呈现的任务相似。研究发现，采用通用标准定价的选项更可能被查看，但被选择的概率更低；且受试者从仅适用于部分选项的通用定价标准中获益甚微。大多数受试者使用“优势编辑（dominance editing）”操作，即剔除明显处于劣势的选项——无论是作为初步筛选工具，还是在对选项进行排序时。由于这些操作对通用标准选项存在歧视，其使用会激励卖家不采用通用标准。

<p>该网络项目汇聚了来自诺丁汉、华威和东安格利亚大学（UEA）三所顶尖行为社会科学研究中心的经济学家、心理学家、计算机科学家及复杂性科学家。该团队将主导一项研究计划，其具有两大核心目标：（1）开发并检验人类行为与行为改变的跨学科模型；（2）提炼这些模型对公共政策制定与评估的启示。

基础研究将聚焦于三个相互关联的主题：（1）理解个体行为与行为改变；（2）理解社会与互动行为；（3）重新思考政策分析的基础。

该项目将通过一系列与上述三个主题紧密关联的应用项目，探索基础科学对政策的启示。这些应用项目包括：消费信贷行为的决定因素、社会价值观的形成，以及影响健康与安全政策的评估策略。

该研究将整合多学科的理论视角，并利用多种互补的方法论，包括：个体、群体及复杂系统的理论建模；概念分析；实验室与田野实验；大数据集分析。

该网络将推动高质量跨学科研究，并充当理解行为与行为改变的政策论坛。</p>