Modeling Markets: Analyzing Marketing Phenomena and Improving Marketing Decision Making

Abstract

This book is about how models can be developed to represent demand and supply on markets, where the emphasis is on demand models. Our primary focus is on quantitative models that can be used by managers to support marketing decisions. We define a model as a representation of the most important elements of a perceived real-world system. Appropriately constructed models can provide insights about structural relations between marketing variables. Since models explicate the relations, both the process of model building and the model that ultimately results can improve the quality of marketing decisions. This book is our attempt to provide a structure for model building. The content of the book should be of interest to researchers, analysts, managers and students who want to develop, evaluate, and/or use models of marketing phenomena.