IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v103y2013i3p575-79.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating the Effect of Salience in Wholesale and Retail Car Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Meghan R. Busse
  • Nicola Lacetera
  • Devin G. Pope
  • Jorge Silva-Risso
  • Justin R. Sydnor

Abstract

We investigate whether the first digit of an odometer reading is more salient to consumers than subsequent digits. We find that retail transaction prices and volumes of used vehicles drop discontinuously at 10,000-mile odometer thresholds, echoing effects found in the wholesale market by Lacetera, Pope and Sydnor (2012). Our results reveal that retail consumers devote limited attention to evaluating vehicle mileage, and that this drives effects in the wholesale market. We estimate the inattention parameter implied by the price discontinuities. In addition, our results suggest that estimating consumer-level structural parameters using data from an intermediate market can give misleading results.

Suggested Citation

  • Meghan R. Busse & Nicola Lacetera & Devin G. Pope & Jorge Silva-Risso & Justin R. Sydnor, 2013. "Estimating the Effect of Salience in Wholesale and Retail Car Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 575-579, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:103:y:2013:i:3:p:575-79
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.3.575
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.103.3.575
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/ds/may2013/P2013_4417_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicola Lacetera & Devin G. Pope & Justin R. Sydnor, 2012. "Heuristic Thinking and Limited Attention in the Car Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2206-2236, August.
    2. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    3. Meghan Busse & Jorge Silva-Risso & Florian Zettelmeyer, 2006. "$1,000 Cash Back: The Pass-Through of Auto Manufacturer Promotions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1253-1270, September.
    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. Reto Foellmi & Stefan Legge & Lukas Schmid, 2016. "Do Professionals Get It Right? Limited Attention and Risk‐taking Behaviour," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(592), pages 724-755, May.
    2. Florian Englmaier & Arno Schmöller & Till Stowasser, 2018. "Price Discontinuities in an Online Market for Used Cars," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 2754-2766, June.
    3. Nathan Blascak & Julia S. Cheney & Robert M. Hunt & Vyacheslav Mikhed & Dubravka Ritter & Michael Vogan, 2021. "Financial Consequences of Severe Identity Theft in the U.S," Working Papers 21-41, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    4. Ajzenman, Nicolás & Elacqua, Gregory & Marotta, Luana & Westh Olsen, Anne Sofie, 2021. "Order Effects and Employment Decisions: Experimental Evidence from a Nationwide Program," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 11541, Inter-American Development Bank.
    5. Diederich, Johannes & Epperson, Raphael & Goeschl, Timo, 2021. "How to Design the Ask? Funding Units vs. Giving Money," Working Papers 0698, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    6. Dalton, Michael & Landry, Peter, 2020. "‘Overattention’ to first-hand experience in hiring decisions: Evidence from professional basketball," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 98-113.
    7. Scharf, Kim & Smith, Sarah, 2010. "Rational Inattention to Subsidies for Charitable Contributions," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 02, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    8. Katharina Dowling & Daniel Guhl & Daniel Klapper & Martin Spann & Lucas Stich & Narine Yegoryan, 2020. "Behavioral biases in marketing," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 449-477, May.
    9. Meng, Charlotte C., 2023. "The price paid: Heuristic thinking and biased reference points in the housing market," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    10. Dewan, Ambuj & Neligh, Nathaniel, 2020. "Estimating information cost functions in models of rational inattention," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    11. Kevin Ducbao Tran, 2020. "Partitioned Pricing and Consumer Welfare," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1888, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Julia S. Cheney & Robert M. Hunt & Vyacheslav Mikhed & Dubravka Ritter & Michael Vogan, 2014. "Identity theft as a teachable moment," Working Papers 14-28, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    13. Zemin (Zachary) Zhong, 2022. "Chasing Diamonds and Crowns: Consumer Limited Attention and Seller Response," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4380-4397, June.
    14. Eric J. Allen & Patricia M. Dechow & Devin G. Pope & George Wu, 2017. "Reference-Dependent Preferences: Evidence from Marathon Runners," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1657-1672, June.
    15. Raj Chetty & Adam Looney & Kory Kroft, 2009. "Salience and Taxation: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1145-1177, September.
    16. Luca Repetto & Alex Solís, 2020. "The Price of Inattention: Evidence from the Swedish Housing Market," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 3261-3304.
    17. Todd, Annika & Cappers, Peter & Spurlock, C. Anna & Jin, Ling, 2019. "Spillover as a cause of bias in baseline evaluation methods for demand response programs," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 344-357.
    18. Cardella, Eric & Seiler, Michael J., 2016. "The effect of listing price strategy on real estate negotiations: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 71-90.
    19. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Itai Ater & Vardit Landsman, 2013. "Do Customers Learn from Experience? Evidence from Retail Banking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(9), pages 2019-2035, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L62 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Automobiles; Other Transportation Equipment; Related Parts and Equipment
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

    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:aea:aecrev:v:103:y:2013:i:3:p:575-79. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.