Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
社会规范在零价格效应中的作用
The role of social norms in zero price effects
摘要
A zero price effect is a discontinuous change in demand when price is reduced to zero from a level arbitrarily close to it. It has been proposed that social norms play a role in zero price effects on consumption. We first conducted a norm-elicitation experiment to measure how people perceive the social appropriateness of consumption under zero versus minimal prices. We then ran a natural field experiment in the same contexts to observe actual taking behavior. Results show that the social appropriateness of consuming high quantities is significantly lower when goods are offered for free than when they are sold at 1 cent. Zero pricing increases the proportion of individuals who consume something, but reduces the average amount taken by those who consume positive amounts. Overall, the evidence suggests that high consumption of free goods is prevented by its social inappropriateness, potentially helping to explain the inconsistent evidence on the direction of zero price effects in previous studies.
中文摘要
零价格效应是指当价格从任意接近零的水平降至零时，需求发生的不连续变化。已有研究提出，社会规范在零价格对消费的影响中发挥作用。我们首先开展了一项规范诱导实验，以衡量人们在零价格与最低价格条件下对消费社会适当性的认知。随后，我们在相同情境下进行了一项自然田野实验，以观察实际获取行为。结果表明，当商品免费提供时，大量消费的社会适当性显著低于以1美分出售的情况。零价格增加了消费某种物品的个体比例，但降低了消费正数量个体的平均获取量。总体而言，证据表明免费商品的高消费因其社会不适当性而受到抑制，这或许有助于解释以往研究中关于零价格效应方向的不一致证据。