American economic association (k1).
- PubMed: 17746758
Abstract
How do consumers choose from a menu of contracts? We analyze a novel dataset from three U.S. health clubs with information on both the contractual choice and the pay higher fees for the option to cancel each month. We also document cancellation average 4.3 times per month. They pay a price per expected visit of more than $17, even though they could pay $10 per visit using a 10-visit pass. On average, these users forgo savings of $600 during their membership. Second, consumers who choose a monthly contract are 17 percent more likely to stay enrolled beyond one year than users committing day-to-day attendance decisions of 7,752 members over three years. The observed consumer behavior is difficult to reconcile with standard preferences and beliefs. First, members who choose a contract with a flat monthly fee of over $70 attend on for a year. This is surprising because monthly members delays and attendance expectations, among other findings. Leading explanations for our findings are overconfidence about future self-control or about future efficiency. Overconfident agents overestimate attendance as well as the cancellation proba- bility of automatically renewed contracts. Our results suggest that making infer- ences from observed contract choice under the rational expectation hypothesis can lead to biases in the estimation of consumer preferences.
American economic association (k1).
Obsolescence and Technological Change in a Maturing Economy
Author(s): Marvin Frankel
Source: The American Economic Review, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Jun., 1955), pp. 296-319
Published by: American Economic Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/779
Accessed: 07/05/2010 09:10
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