IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jomega/v28y2000i5p599-607.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Bayesian approach to the evaluation of stochastic signals of product quality

Author

Listed:
  • Hudson, John

Abstract

This paper explores consumers' use of stochastic signals of product quality from a Bayesian perspective. Stochastic signals are implicit in many of the analyses on signal usage in the marketing literature and yet formal analysis of their use has been relatively limited. The basis for our analysis is a seminal paper by Winkler on combining experts' forecasts into a single consensus distribution, together with the resulting literature to which this has given rise. This is a substantial body of literature and represents a readily available fund of results which can be used within the marketing context. Hence, it is shown that the weights on different signals will be inversely related to the variance of the signal and need not be convex. It is also shown that for repeatedly purchased goods, signals will play a decreasing role as the consumer gains experience of the good.

Suggested Citation

  • Hudson, John, 2000. "A Bayesian approach to the evaluation of stochastic signals of product quality," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 599-607, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jomega:v:28:y:2000:i:5:p:599-607
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305-0483(99)00075-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jones, Philip & Hudson, John, 1996. "Signalling product quality: When is price relevant?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 257-266, August.
    2. Hjorth-Andersen, Chr., 1991. "Quality indicators : In theory and in fact," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 1491-1505, December.
    3. Tülin Erdem & Michael P. Keane, 1996. "Decision-Making Under Uncertainty: Capturing Dynamic Brand Choice Processes in Turbulent Consumer Goods Markets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 1-20.
    4. Robert L. Winkler, 1981. "Combining Probability Distributions from Dependent Information Sources," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 479-488, April.
    5. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1986. "Price and Advertising Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 796-821, August.
    6. Nelson, Philip, 1974. "Advertising as Information," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(4), pages 729-754, July/Aug..
    7. Andrews, Rick L., 1992. "Economics of information and heterogeneous products," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 399-420, September.
    8. Hong, Sung-Tai & Wyer, Robert S, Jr, 1989. "Effects of Country-of-Origin and Product-Attribute Information on Product Evaluation: An Information Processing Perspective," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(2), pages 175-187, September.
    9. Archibald, Robert B & Haulman, Clyde A & Moody, Carlisle E, Jr, 1983. "Quality, Price, Advertising, and Published Quality Ratings," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 9(4), pages 347-356, March.
    10. Rao, Akshay R & Monroe, Kent B, 1988. "The Moderating Effect of Prior Knowledge on Cue Utilization in Product Evaluations," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 15(2), pages 253-264, September.
    11. Purushottam Papatla & Lakshman Krishnamurthi, 1992. "A Probit Model of Choice Dynamics," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(2), pages 189-206.
    12. Jones, Philip & Hudson, John, 1996. "Standardization and the costs of assessing quality," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 355-361, September.
    13. Jagdish N. Sheth, 1969. "Précis--Using Factor Analysis to Estimate Parameters," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(6), pages 350-352, February.
    14. Maute, Manfred F. & Forrester, William Jr., 1991. "The effect of attribute qualities on consumer decision making: a causal model of external information search," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 643-666, December.
    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. John Hudson, 2009. "Talking up Social Capital: An Analysis of Social Voice," Department of Economics Working Papers 6/09, University of Bath, Department of Economics.
    2. Noll, Juergen, 2004. "Comparing quality signals as tools of consumer protection: are warranties always better than advertisements to promote higher product quality?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 227-239, June.
    3. repec:eid:wpaper:6/09 is not listed 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. Hudson, John & Jones, Philip, 2001. "Measuring the efficiency of stochastic signals of product quality," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 35-49, March.
    2. Jones, Philip & Hudson, John, 1996. "Signalling product quality: When is price relevant?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 257-266, August.
    3. John Hudson & Philip Jones, 2003. "International trade in 'quality goods': signalling problems for developing countries," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(8), pages 999-1013.
    4. Noll, Juergen, 2004. "Comparing quality signals as tools of consumer protection: are warranties always better than advertisements to promote higher product quality?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 227-239, June.
    5. Gergaud, Olivier & Livat, Florine, 2007. "How do consumers use signals to assess quality?," Working Papers 37296, American Association of Wine Economists.
    6. Laurent Cavenaile & Pau Roldan-Blanco, 2021. "Advertising, Innovation, and Economic Growth," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 251-303, July.
    7. Hwang, Yun Jae & Roe, Brian E. & Teisl, Mario F., 2006. "Does Price Signal Quality? Strategic Implications of Price as a Signal of Quality for the Case of Genetically Modified Food," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-22.
    8. Guofang Huang & Matthew Shum & Wei Tan, 2019. "Is pharmaceutical detailing informative? Evidence from contraindicated drug prescriptions," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 135-160, June.
    9. Simon P. Anderson & Federico Ciliberto & Jura Liaukonyte & Régis Renault, 2016. "Push-me pull-you: comparative advertising in the OTC analgesics industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(4), pages 1029-1056, November.
    10. Justin P. Johnson & David P. Myatt, 2006. "On the Simple Economics of Advertising, Marketing, and Product Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 756-784, June.
    11. Grunewald, Andreas & Kräkel, Matthias, 2017. "Advertising as signal jamming," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 91-113.
    12. Moraga-Gonzalez, Jose Luis, 2000. "Quality uncertainty and informative advertising," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 615-640, May.
    13. Brett Hollenbeck & Sridhar Moorthy & Davide Proserpio, 2019. "Advertising Strategy in the Presence of Reviews: An Empirical Analysis," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(5), pages 793-811, September.
    14. Kim, Chung Koo, 1996. "The interaction between price and long-run variables in a multinational brand market," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 1-14, September.
    15. Ignatius Horstmann & Sridhar Moorthy, 2003. "Advertising Spending and Quality for Services: The Role of Capacity," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 337-365, September.
    16. Horstmann, Ignatius & MacDonald, Glenn, 2003. "Is advertising a signal of product quality? Evidence from the compact disc player market, 1983-1992," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 317-345, March.
    17. Régis Chenavaz & Sajjad M. Jasimuddin, 2017. "An analytical model of the relationship between product quality and advertising," Post-Print hal-01685892, HAL.
    18. Xu Guan & Yulan Wang & Zelong Yi & Ying‐Ju Chen, 2020. "Inducing Consumer Online Reviews Via Disclosure," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(8), pages 1956-1971, August.
    19. Duncan Simester & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Erik Brynjolfsson & Eric T. Anderson, 2009. "Dynamics Of Retail Advertising: Evidence From A Field Experiment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 47(3), pages 482-499, July.
    20. Linnemer, Laurent, 2002. "Price and advertising as signals of quality when some consumers are informed," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(7), pages 931-947, September.

    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:eee:jomega:v:28:y:2000:i:5:p:599-607. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/375/description#description .

    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.