Start-up Search Costs

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Byrne, David P.; de Roos, Nicolas
• 署名单位: University of Melbourne; University of Sydney
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20190279
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 81-112
• 关键词: consumer search; frictions; collusion

摘要

Workhorse economic models used for studying the market impacts of search frictions assume constant search costs: individuals pay the same cost to obtain price information each time they search. This paper provides evidence on a new form of search costs: start-up costs. Exploiting a natural experiment in retail gasoline, we document how a temporary, large exogenous shock to consumers' search incentives leads to a substantial, permanent increase in price search. A standard search model fails to explain such history dependence in search, while it follows directly from a model with a one-time up-front cost to start searching.