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Gustav Cassel partially anticipated revealed preference theory in his opposition to the utility theory of value. Cassel favored a principle of scarcity over the concept of marginal utility, and he wanted to found economics upon scarcity. He accordingly looked to the supply side and rejected utility. However, revealed preference theorists went beyond Cassel by elaborating demand functions and precise price equilibria.

An alternative measure of brand loyalty adapted from the nonstationary Dirichlet-multinomial model of brand choice behavior is presented. This proposed model separates sources of variation due to hetereogeneity and nonstationarity. This allows updating priors with regards to probabilities dictating household choices and keeping track of changes in these probabilities over time.

Product warranties do not significantly enhance the product attitudes of consumers and are not the sales tools they are commonly thought to be, according to an analysis based on a study of business students. Factors such as price are more important to the customer, who perceives warranties as risk reducers and insurance against product failure but not necessarily product enhancers or quality guarantees.

Objectives. The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 mandates the Food and Drug Administration to promulgate changes in nutrition labeling regulations. This study investigates the potential health benefits associated with expected changes in food consumption resulting from the act. Methods. This paper provides four estimates of the potential health benefits from the dietary changes expected to occur as a result of the 1990 act. The upper hound estimates begin with the premise that all consumers will adopt the daily reference values of total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol. The lower bound estimate is based on consumers' responses to a shelf-labeling program sponsored by the Food and Drug Administration in the 1980s. A computer model developed by Dr. Warren Browner and his associates was used to estimate the health benefits from reduced nutrient intakes. Results. Estimates of the number of discounted life-years gained nationwide for the first 20 years after the implementation of the act range from a high of 1.2 million to a low of 40 000. Conclusions. The results of the study highlight that relatively small changes in nutrient intakes may generate large public health benefits. (Am J Public Health. 1993;83:717-724), Models used to estimate the health benefits from mandatory nutrition labeling predict that labeling will have some success changing the dietary habits of consumers. The goal of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 is to make nutritional labeling more accessible to the public. Four models were used to assess the possible effects of the Act. The models varied from assuming that all consumers followed recommended daily intake requirements and used labeling to guide their choices to models which evaluated the Special Diet Alert program instituted by the Food and Drug Administration. Models which assumed more consumer awareness and desire to follow dietary guidelines predicted higher savings in terms of medical costs and life expectancy. Researchers also hypothesized that stricter labeling requirements might induce manufacturers to introduce new, healthier formulas.

In a market where consumers do not have an adequate perception of product quality, firms with lower quality products will thrive on increased competition. Although it is in the best interests of a company to use quality as a selling point for their product, it is often the aggregate quality of the entire marketplace which is judged, giving incentives to those companies which stay within the average. A monopolist will sometimes provide a better quality product than an oligopolist, especially when perceptions are low and the reference for quality lies solely within the market.

A conceptual model for the analysis of store patronage among secondhand goods buyers is developed. The influence of general attitude toward store type (GAST), store image and perceived product quality on store image are particularly analyzed. Tests and cross-validation results show that GAST is an important antecedent variable in secondhand goods store patronage. Implications of the research results are also discussed.

Examining the cross-national applicability of consumer behavior constructs and models is becoming increasingly more important. In this study, procedures for testing the cross-national applicability of models are illustrated. Specifically, the authors specify a model of attitude toward advertising in general and test its cross-national applicability with data from the United States, New Zealand, Denmark, Greece, and India. The results suggest that the relationships proposed in the model are applicable and similar in strength across the five countries. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Existing macroeconomic literature on the life cycle model of consumers's behavior employ the backward induction procedure. Such an approach, however, fails because it does not take into account the uncertainty governing an individual's income during his lifetime. A better method would be to formulate the problem in a forward-looking framework under the assumption that consumers save but do not plan specifically for their future.

This article empirically examines the welfare impact of unemployment based on a simple model of consumer behavior in the presence of unemployment. Using annual US aggregate data, we estimate the parameters of a particular consumer/worker preference function. These parameter estimates allow us to calculate for the representative consumer/worker the marginal rate of substitution of unemployment probability for wage rate, the welfare implications of unemployment insurance payments, and the cost of unemployment. The novelty of our work is basing our calculations on parameters of a utility function. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Reference price formation is shown to significantly affect consumer behavior. A theoretical model that incorporates reference price effects with the traditional economic theory of consumer choice is developed and empirically tested using weekly retail egg sales data from Southern California. Results indicate that reference price formation does have significant effects on consumer behavior and that these effects are asymmetric with consumers two and a half times more responsive to egg price increases that are more than the reference price than they are to comparable egg price decreases.

A model that considers consumer preferences and price expectations for multiple brands as predictors of normative consumer purchase behavior is developed. The model exhibits how commodity purchase policy models recognizing price uncertainty can be adapted to the study of multi-brand markets. It is used to study the normative impact of changes in price promotion policies and holding costs on individual purchase behavior. It is also used in a Monte Carlo market situation to determine the normative effect of deal probability and brand loyalty on nonpromotion baseline sales and the post promotion dip.

The value that consumers place on time spent in price-comparison shopping is central to the economics of information theory and models of consumers' search behavior. Yet a few empirical studies have examined consumers' subjective value of time. Building on Gary Becker's work, this article presents two tests of a model of the subjective value of time. In an effort to explain consumers' subjective value of time while they are price-comparison shopping, the model introduces perceived enjoyment of shopping as a new explanatory variable. The findings reveal that respondents incorporate both wage rates and perceived enjoyment of price-comparison shopping into their subjective value of time. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Mathematical computations proving the existence and continuity of the demand function for consumer behavior are presented. The consumption set is ordered by a continuous, uniformly rotund preference relation. The purpose of the proof is to illustratethe mathematical basis of economic theory and the extent of mathematical applications in economic theory.

The Behavioral Perspective Model of purchase and consumption (BPM) portrays the rate at which consumer behaviors take place as a function of the relative openness of the setting in which they occur and the informational and hedonic reinforcement available in or promised by the setting. Each of eight combinations of contingencies based on these explanatory variables is uniquely related to a specific mode of observed consumer behavior. By providing an environmental perspective on consumer behavior, the model makes a critical contribution to the development of contemporary consumer research that frequently decontextualizes its subject matter. It also presents an innovative conceptualization of the nature of marketing strategies. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Purchasing decisions for frequently bought products are linked to history as well as current variables, and inertia and mobility are two factors to take into account. Other factors in the model include the play-off between loyalty and a desire for variety, the long-term impact of consuming the same item, and how far alternatives are alike. This dynamic model also includes the effect of pricing policies. The model developed with this method performs better than a model which only considers brand loyalty, and better than three other models, in terms of how far predictions are accurate.

Shippers' use of contract motor carrier service has been stimulated during the past decade by their increasing recognition of the importance of including quality transportation services in their competitive strategies. [...]

In this paper we distinguish two 'dimensions' of the utility concept. The first is the 'behavioral' dimension, described by indifference curves in a commodity space. It may be estimated by observing consumer purchase behavior. The second dimension is the 'welfare' dimension, i.e., the cardinal utility levels corresponding to indifference curves. The second dimension may be estimated by means of the income evaluation approach. We deal withy methodological issues and show by means of empirical evidence the validity of the income evaluation approach. In the same time we propose some major modifications of the method. Secondly, we show how the two dimensions may be combined. This is illustrated with respect to the AIDS and the Translog model. In this way we find how price and income variations influence measured individual welfare.

Social index numbers incorporate, either explicity or implicitly, normative assumptions concerning the means by which the individual-level data is aggregated. Since the ethical underpinnings of the indexes can always be debated, a critical empirical issue is the extent to which aggregate index numbers vary with their underlying normative bases. We find that the cost of living indexes are surprisingly insensitive to the choice of the form of the index. However, the normative basis of the social quantity indexes has a dramatic influence of the measured level of the change in the standard of living.

A model of consumer behaviour is estimated by pooling Canadian cross-sectional and time-series data. In contrast to a similar study by Jorgenson, Lau and Stoker (1982), exact aggregation, homogeneity, and symmetry are not imposed but are tested. Exact aggregation is rejected. However, these data are less sensitive to homogeneity and symmetry restrictions. Demographic effects appear to be important determinants of demand. The model can also be estimated using only cross-sectional data. These results indicate that exact aggregation should not be imposed, and household demographic effects should be modelled. Homegeneity and symmetry seem relatively less restrictive for these data.

Higher relative risk aversion (RRA) is associated with higher risk premiums only if the riskiness of output is exogenous. When consumers can affect the variability of output, the market risk premium may well decrease as the RRA increases. With constant relative risk aversion and linear production functions, the ratio of the market risk premium to the standard deviation of the market is constant and independent of the RRA. (JEL D20, D80)

The French engineer-economist, JULES DUPUIT (1804-1866) fashioned theories of consumer behavior and enterpreneurship that stressed the following propositions: (1) that goods are 'bundles' of utility-generating characteristics, and (2) that the enterpreneur's job is the dual task of discovering which combinations of characteristics consumers want to buy, and then pricing these combinations so as to simultaneously maximize sellers' profit and consumers' utility. Unlike some recent models patterned after LANCASTER, DUPUTT's theory of entrepreneurship was not deterministic. He perceived competition in the dynamic sense, and emphasized market processes rather than end-states.