IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/expeco/v27y2024i4d10.1007_s10683-024-09832-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategies people use buying airline tickets: a cognitive modeling analysis of optimal stopping in a changing environment

Author

Listed:
  • Michael D. Lee

    (University of California Irvine)

  • Sara Chong

    (University of California Irvine)

Abstract

We study how people solve the optimal stopping problem of buying an airline ticket. Over a set of problems, people were given 12 opportunities to buy a ticket ranging from 12 months before travel to 1 day before. The distributions from which prices were sampled changed over time, following patterns observed in industry analysis of flight ticket pricing. We characterize the optimal decision process in terms of a set of thresholds that set the maximum purchase price for each time point. In a behavioral analysis, we find that the average price people pay is above the optimal, that there is little evidence people learn over the sequence of problems, but that there are likely significant individual differences in the way people make decisions. In a model-based analysis, we propose a set of nine possible decision strategies, based on how purchasing probabilities change according to time and the price of the ticket. Using Bayesian latent-mixture methods, we infer the strategies used by the participants, finding that some use purely time-based strategies, while others also attend to the price of the tickets. We conclude by noting the limitations in the strategies as accounts of people’s decision making, highlighting the need to consider sequential effects and other context effects on purchasing behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael D. Lee & Sara Chong, 2024. "Strategies people use buying airline tickets: a cognitive modeling analysis of optimal stopping in a changing environment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 27(4), pages 854-873, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:expeco:v:27:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s10683-024-09832-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s10683-024-09832-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10683-024-09832-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10683-024-09832-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    2. Bilotkach, Volodymyr & Gaggero, Alberto A. & Piga, Claudio A., 2015. "Airline pricing under different market conditions: Evidence from European Low-Cost Carriers," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 152-163.
    3. J. Neil Bearden & Amnon Rapoport & Ryan O. Murphy, 2006. "Sequential Observation and Selection with Rank-Dependent Payoffs: An Experimental Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(9), pages 1437-1449, September.
    4. Daniel G. Goldstein & R. Preston McAfee & Siddharth Suri & James R. Wright, 2020. "Learning When to Stop Searching," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1375-1394, March.
    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. Amnon Rapoport & Darryl A. Seale & Leonidas Spiliopoulos, 2023. "Progressive stopping heuristics that excel in individual and competitive sequential search," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 94(1), pages 135-165, January.
    2. Howard Kunreuther & Erwann Michel-Kerjan, 2015. "Demand for fixed-price multi-year contracts: Experimental evidence from insurance decisions," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 171-194, October.
    3. Ranganathan, Kavitha & Lejarraga, Tomás, 2021. "Elicitation of risk preferences through satisficing," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    4. Kimbrough, E.O. & Vostroknutov, A., 2012. "Rules, rule-following and cooperation," Research Memorandum 053, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    5. Bergantino, Angela Stefania & Capozza, Claudia, 2014. "One price for all? The role of market captivity as a price discrimination device: evidence from the Italia city-pair markets," Working Papers 1401, SIET Società Italiana di Economia dei Trasporti e della Logistica.
    6. Ma, Jie & Tse, Ying Kei & Wang, Xiaojun & Zhang, Minhao, 2019. "Examining customer perception and behaviour through social media research – An empirical study of the United Airlines overbooking crisis," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 192-205.
    7. Simon Gächter & Lingbo Huang & Martin Sefton, 2016. "Combining “real effort” with induced effort costs: the ball-catching task," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 687-712, December.
    8. Festré, Agnès, 2018. "Do people stand by their commitments? Evidence from a classroom experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1-6.
    9. James C. Cox & Vjollca Sadiraj, 2018. "Incentives," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2018-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    10. Chetan Dave & Catherine Eckel & Cathleen Johnson & Christian Rojas, 2010. "Eliciting risk preferences: When is simple better?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 219-243, December.
    11. Helena Szrek & Li-Wei Chao & Shandir Ramlagan & Karl Peltzer, 2012. "Predicting (un)healthy behavior: A comparison of risk-taking propensity measures," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 7(6), pages 716-727, November.
    12. Klein Teeselink, Bouke & Potter van Loon, Rogier J.D. & van den Assem, Martijn J. & van Dolder, Dennie, 2020. "Incentives, performance and choking in darts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 38-52.
    13. Steven Kachelmeier & Kristy Towry, 2005. "The Limitations of Experimental Design: A Case Study Involving Monetary Incentive Effects in Laboratory Markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 8(1), pages 21-33, April.
    14. Idris Idris & Saefudin Zuhri & Mohammad Efendi, 2018. "Determinants of Employee Work Satisfaction," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 8(6), pages 47-52.
    15. Max Deter, 2020. "Prosociality and Risk Preferences in the Financial Sector," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1075, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    16. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2000. "Volunteers and Pseudo-Volunteers: The Effect of Recruitment Method in Dictator Experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(2), pages 107-120, October.
    17. Maite D. Laméris & Richard Jong-A-Pin & Rasmus Wiese, 2018. "An Experimental Test of the Validity of Survey-Measured Political Ideology," CESifo Working Paper Series 7139, CESifo.
    18. Patt, Anthony G. & Bowles, Hannah Riley & Cash, David W., 2006. "Mechanisms for Enhancing the Credibility of an Adviser: Prepayment and Aligned Incentives," Working Paper Series rwp06-010, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    19. Ben-Ner, Avner & Putterman, Louis & Kong, Fanmin & Magan, Dan, 2004. "Reciprocity in a two-part dictator game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 333-352, March.

    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:kap:expeco:v:27:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s10683-024-09832-2. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.