Using a large data set on consumers' web browsing and purchasing behavior we contrast various classical search models …. We find that the benchmark model of sequential search with a known distributions of prices can be rejected based on the … distribution and have to learn the price distribution, observed search behavior for given consumers over time is more consistent …

This paper studies search and prices in the Medigap insurance market. Using data on market shares, insurer … characteristics, and plan prices, we estimate to what extent prices can be explained by search and product differentiation. In our … model, consumers search across Medigap insurers for prices as well as plan types. Our estimates indicate search costs are …

demand with optimal consumer search. Consumers first choose which products to search; then, once they learn the utility they … characteristics but also from variation in the costs of searching them. We apply the model to the automobile industry. Our search cost … estimate is highly significant and indicates that consumers conduct a limited amount of search. Estimates of own- and cross …

We study a consumer non-sequential search oligopoly model with search cost heterogeneity. We first prove that an … search. We find that the sequence of points on the support of the search cost distribution that can be identified is …, the search cost distribution cannot be identified accurately at quantiles other than the lowest. To solve this pitfall, we …

We modify the paper of Stahl (1989) [Stahl, D.O., 1989. Oligopolistic pricing with sequential consumer search. American … particular, expected price increases as search cost decreases and is constant in the number of shoppers and in the number of … firms. Welfare falls as firms enter the market. We show that monopoly pricing never obtains with truly costly search …

In a recent paper Hong and Shum [2006. Using price distributions to estimate search costs. Rand Journal of Economics 37 …, 257–275] present a structural method to estimate search cost distributions. We extend their approach to the case of … oligopoly and present a new maximum likelihood method to estimate search costs. We apply our method to a data set of online …

We study price formation in the standard model of consumer search for differentiated products but allow for search cost … heterogeneity. In doing so, we dispense with the usual assumption that all consumers search at least once in equilibrium. This … allows us to analyze the manner in which prices affect the decision to search rather than to not search at all, which is an …

This paper studies the identification of the costs of simultaneous search in portfolio problems (Chade and Smith, 2006 …). We show that market shares data from a single market do not provide sufficient information to identify the search cost … markets wherethe alternatives that similar decision makers confront vary, the search cost distribution and theutility …

We study price formation in the standard model of consumer search for differentiated products but allow for search cost … heterogeneity. In doing so, we dispense with the usual assumption that all consumers search at least once in equilibrium. This … allows us to analyze the manner in which prices affect the decision to search rather than to not search at all, which is an …

This chapter provides a data-driven overview of the different online platforms that consumers use to search for books … Nook) rather than at general search engines (e.g., Google or Bing). We also highlight a number of challenges that will make … it difficult for researchers to accurately measure internet-based search behavior in the years to come. Finally, we …