A Behavioral Remedy for the Censorship Bias

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Tong, Jordan; Feiler, Daniel; Larrick, Richard
• 署名单位: University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison; Dartmouth College; Duke University
• 刊物名称: PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1059-1478
• DOI: 10.1111/poms.12823
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 624-643
• 关键词: debias; censored demand; forecasting; newsvendor; behavioral operations

摘要

Existing evidence suggests that managers exhibit a censorship bias: demand beliefs tend to be biased low when lost sales from stockouts are unobservable (censored demand) compared to when they are observable (uncensored demand). We develop a non-constraining, easily implementable behavioral debias technique to help mitigate this tendency in demand forecasting and inventory decision-making settings. The debiasing technique has individuals record estimates of demand outcomes (REDO): participants explicitly record a self-generated estimate of every demand realization, allowing them to record a different value than the number of sales in periods with stockouts. In doing so, they construct a more representative sample of demand realizations (that differs from the sales sample). In three laboratory experiments with MBA and undergraduate students, this remedy significantly reduces downward bias in demand beliefs under censorship and leads to higher inventory order decisions.