The Psychological Effect of Weather on Car Purchases

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Busse, Meghan R.; Pope, Devin G.; Pope, Jaren C.; Silva-Risso, Jorge
• 署名单位: Northwestern University; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Chicago; Brigham Young University; University of California System; University of California Riverside
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qju033
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 371-414
• 关键词: information suppression; shrouded attributes; Consumer choice; Projection bias; SALIENCE; ECONOMICS; shocks; field

摘要

When buying durable goods, consumers must forecast how much utility they will derive from future consumption, including consumption in different states of the world. This can be complicated for consumers because making intertemporal evaluations may expose them to a variety of psychological biases such as present bias, projection bias, and salience effects. We investigate whether consumers are affected by such intertemporal biases when they purchase automobiles. Using data for more than 40 million vehicle transactions, we explore the impact of weather on purchasing decisions. We find that the choice to purchase a convertible or a four-wheel-drive is highly dependent on the weather at the time of purchase in a way that is inconsistent with classical utility theory. We consider a range of rational explanations for the empirical effects we find, but none can explain fully the effects we estimate. We then discuss and explore projection bias and salience as two primary psychological mechanisms that are consistent with our results. JEL Codes: D03; D12.