IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iuk/wpaper/2010-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Identification of the Costs of Simultaneous Search

Author

Listed:
  • Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez

    (University of Groningen and CESifo)

  • Zsolt Sandor

    (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

  • Matthijs R. Wildenbeest

    (Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, Indiana University Kelley School of Business)

Abstract

This paper studies the identification of the costs of simultaneous search in a class of (portfolio) problems studied by Chade and Smith (2006). We show that aggregate data from a single market, or disaggregate data from a single market segment, do not provide sufficient information to identify the costs of simultaneous search in any reasonable interval. We then show that by pooling aggregate data from multiple markets, or disaggregate data from multiple market segments, the econometrician can identify the costs of simultaneous search in a non-empty interval. Within the context of specific examples, we illustrate that identification of the search cost distribution in its full support may easily be obtained.

Suggested Citation

  • Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez & Zsolt Sandor & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2010. "On the Identification of the Costs of Simultaneous Search," Working Papers 2010-10, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
  • Handle: RePEc:iuk:wpaper:2010-10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/RePEc/iuk/wpaper/bepp2010-10-moraga-sandor-wildenbeest.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Albrecht & Pieter A. Gautier & Susan Vroman, 2006. "Equilibrium Directed Search with Multiple Applications," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 869-891.
    2. Hector Chade & Lones Smith, 2006. "Simultaneous Search," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1293-1307, September.
    3. Nitin Mehta & Surendra Rajiv & Kannan Srinivasan, 2003. "Price Uncertainty and Consumer Search: A Structural Model of Consideration Set Formation," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 58-84, June.
    4. Asher Wolinsky, 1986. "True Monopolistic Competition as a Result of Imperfect Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 493-511.
    5. Jun B. Kim & Paulo Albuquerque & Bart J. Bronnenberg, 2010. "Online Demand Under Limited Consumer Search," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(6), pages 1001-1023, 11-12.
    6. Simon P. Anderson & Regis Renault, 1999. "Pricing, Product Diversity, and Search Costs: A Bertrand-Chamberlin-Diamond Model," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(4), pages 719-735, Winter.
    7. Philipp Kircher, 2009. "Efficiency of Simultaneous Search," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(5), pages 861-913, October.
    8. Burdett, Kenneth & Judd, Kenneth L, 1983. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(4), pages 955-969, July.
    9. José Luis Moraga‐González & Zsolt Sándor & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, 2013. "Semi‐Nonparametric Estimation Of Consumer Search Costs," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 1205-1223, November.
    10. Han Hong & Matthew Shum, 2006. "Using price distributions to estimate search costs," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(2), pages 257-275, June.
    11. Kelso, Alexander S, Jr & Crawford, Vincent P, 1982. "Job Matching, Coalition Formation, and Gross Substitutes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1483-1504, November.
    12. Stephan Seiler, 2010. "The impact of search costs on consumer behavior: a dynamic approach," 2010 Meeting Papers 559, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    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. Lu, Zhentong, 2022. "Estimating multinomial choice models with unobserved choice sets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 226(2), pages 368-398.

    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. Elisabeth Honka & Pradeep Chintagunta, 2017. "Simultaneous or Sequential? Search Strategies in the U.S. Auto Insurance Industry," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(1), pages 21-42, January.
    2. Timothy J. Richards & Stephen F. Hamilton & Koichi Yonezawa, 2017. "Variety and the Cost of Search in Supermarket Retailing," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(3), pages 263-285, May.
    3. Donna, Javier D. & Schenone, Pablo & Veramendi, Gregory F., 2020. "Networks, frictions, and price dispersion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 406-431.
    4. Hector Chade & Lones Smith, 2006. "Simultaneous Search," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1293-1307, September.
    5. Gautier, Pieter A. & Wolthoff, Ronald P., 2009. "Simultaneous search with heterogeneous firms and ex post competition," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 311-319, June.
    6. Sarah Auster & Piero Gottardi & Ronald Wolthoff, 2022. "Simultaneous Search and Adverse Selection," Working Papers tecipa-734, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    7. Pieter A. Gautier & Christian L. Holzner, 2011. "Simultaneous Search and Network Efficiency," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-092/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    8. Charles Murry & Yiyi Zhou, 2020. "Consumer Search and Automobile Dealer Colocation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(5), pages 1909-1934, May.
    9. Albrecht, James & Cai, Xiaoming & Gautier, Pieter & Vroman, Susan, 2020. "Multiple applications, competing mechanisms, and market power," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    10. Gautier, Pieter A. & Moraga-González, José L. & Wolthoff, Ronald P., 2007. "Structural Estimation of Search Intensity: Do Non-Employed Workers Search Enough?," IZA Discussion Papers 3045, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Natalia Fabra & Juan-Pablo Montero, 2022. "Product Lines and Price Discrimination in Markets with Information Frictions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 981-1001, February.
    12. Gautier, Pieter A. & Moraga-González, José L. & Wolthoff, Ronald P., 2016. "Search costs and efficiency: Do unemployed workers search enough?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 123-139.
    13. Elisabeth Honka, 2014. "Quantifying search and switching costs in the US auto insurance industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(4), pages 847-884, December.
    14. Moraga-González, José Luis & Sándor, Zsolt & Wildenbeest, Matthijs R., 2017. "Nonsequential search equilibrium with search cost heterogeneity," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 392-414.
    15. Richards, Timothy J. & Hamilton, Stephen F. & Allender, William, 2016. "Search and price dispersion in online grocery markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 255-281.
    16. Xinyu Cao & Yuting Zhu, 2024. "The Power of Commitment in Group Search," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(1), pages 213-228, January.
    17. Yassine Badra, 2020. "The impact of online low search costs on firms' incentives to invest in quality," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(8), pages 1629-1633, December.
    18. Jose Luis Moraga-Gonzalez & Zsolt Sandor & Matthijs R. Wildenbeest, "undated". "Do higher search costs make the markets less competitive?," Working Papers 2013-08, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    19. De los Santos, Babur, 2018. "Consumer search on the Internet," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 66-105.
    20. Liang Guo, 2021. "Endogenous Evaluation and Sequential Search," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(3), pages 413-427, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    search costs; portfolio choice; non-parametric identification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    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:iuk:wpaper:2010-10. 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: Rick Harbaugh (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpiubus.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.