Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
消费者是短视的吗？来自手机和移动服务选择的证据
Are Consumers Myopic? Evidence from Handset and Mobile Services Choices
摘要
In this paper, I estimate discrete choice models for the joint selection of handsets and mobile tariffs, using data on 10,738 subscribers of a European mobile telecommunications operator observed between April 2011 and December 2014. The estimates are used to compute an attention weight on future recurring tariff payments, measured relative to the upfront handset cost. I interpret this weight as a ‘revealed‐choice’ measure of consumer myopia. The results show that consumers substantially underweight future costs on average, with heterogeneity across consumer groups and, more importantly, over time. The average attention weight increases sharply during the period studied, coinciding with the diffusion of SIM‐only tariffs and the entry of a new competitor. These market changes affected prices and variety, but also increased the salience and transparency of total contract costs. Counterfactual simulations show that consumer welfare gains come from both the decline in tariff prices and the availability of SIM‐only offers. The price decline accounts for a large share of the gains, while SIM‐only tariffs provide additional welfare gains by expanding the choice set. Comparing the estimated attention weights with a full‐attention benchmark further shows that consumer underattention shapes predicted choices.
中文摘要
本文利用一家欧洲移动通信运营商在2011年4月至2014年12月期间观察到的10738名用户数据，估计了手机与移动资费联合选择的离散选择模型。基于估计结果，我计算了消费者对未来经常性资费支付的关注权重，该权重以手机 upfront 成本为参照进行衡量。我将这一权重解释为消费者短视的“显示性偏好”度量。结果表明，消费者平均而言显著低估未来成本，且这种低估在不同消费者群体之间存在异质性，更重要的是，随时间而变化。在研究期间，平均关注权重急剧上升，这与仅SIM卡资费的扩散以及新竞争者的进入相吻合。这些市场变化影响了价格和多样性，但也提高了合同总成本的显著性和透明度。反事实模拟显示，消费者福利收益既来自资费价格的下降，也来自仅SIM卡套餐的可获得性。价格下降解释了收益的很大一部分，而仅SIM卡资费通过扩大选择集提供了额外的福利收益。将估计的关注权重与完全关注基准进行比较进一步表明，消费者的关注不足会塑造预测选择。