A Model of Mental Accounting and Reference Price Adaptation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Baucells, Manel; Hwang, Woonam
• 署名单位: University of Virginia; Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) Paris
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2016.2569
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 4201-4218
• 关键词: mental accounting; reference price; loss aversion; sunk-cost fallacy; payment depreciation; reluctance to trade; flat-rate bias

摘要

Consumers possess a mental account that stores the worth of items purchased and yet to be consumed. Reference prices act as the book values of these items. Movements in the account-the comparison between the reference price and the price paid at entry, and the comparison between the benefit of consumption and the reference price at exit-yield hedonic benefits. The reference price is determined by a psychological process of adaptation to the price evoked by the trade. The model is integrative in that it explains a wide array of observed anomalies such as sunk-cost effects, payment depreciation, reluctance to trade, preference for prepayment, and the flat-rate bias. The model also generates new testable implications.