Quantitative Economics
Journal Of The Econometric Society
Edited by: Stéphane Bonhomme • Print ISSN: 1759-7323 • Online ISSN: 1759-7331
Edited by: Stéphane Bonhomme • Print ISSN: 1759-7323 • Online ISSN: 1759-7331
Quantitative Economics: Jul, 2019, Volume 10, Issue 3
Jason R. Blevins, Garrett T. Senney
This paper develops a dynamic model of consumer search that, despite placing very little structure on the dynamic problem faced by consumers, allows us to exploit intertemporal variation in price distributions to estimate the distribution from which consumer search costs are initially drawn. We show that static approaches to estimating this distribution may suffer from dynamic sample selection bias. This can happen if consumers are forward‐looking and delay their purchases in a way that systematically depends on their individual search costs. We consider identification of the population search cost distribution using only price data and develop estimable nonparametric upper and lower bounds on the distribution function, as well as a nonlinear least squares estimator for parametric models. We also consider the additional identifying power of weak, theoretical assumptions such as monotonicity of purchase probabilities in search costs. We apply our estimators to analyze the online market for two widely used econometrics textbooks. Our results suggest that static estimates of the search cost distribution are biased upwards, in a distributional sense, relative to the true population distribution. We illustrate this and other forms of bias in a small‐scale simulation study.
Nonsequential search consumer search dynamic selection nonparametric bounds C14 C57 D43 D83
March 5, 2024
The terms of the Editors of the Econometric Society's three journals end June 30, 2025. We are pleased to announce the incoming Editors and to thank the outgoing Editors for their excellent and continuing service.
Econometrica: Since 2019, Guido Imbens has served as the 14th Editor of Econometrica. On July 1, 2025, Marina Halac will become the Editor.
Quantitative Economics: Stéphane Bonhomme has been the Editor of Quantitative Economics since 2021. His successor will be Bernard Salanié.
Theoretical Economics: The Editor of Theoretical Economics since 2021 has been Simon Board. Taking over for him in July 2025 will be Federico Echenique.
Guido, Stéphane, and Simon have been outstanding Editors. We are grateful to them for the work they have done and will continue to do, and we look forward to further congratulating them next year. We believe Marina, Bernard, and Federico will be outstanding successors and we thank them in advance for their service.
Finally, we are grateful to Larry Samuelson for chairing all three search committees, and we thank the search committee members for their hard and fruitful work:
Econometrica: Christian Dustmann, Lars Hansen, Alessandro Lizzeri, George Mailath, Ariel Pakes, Helene Rey, and Elie Tamer.
QE: Kate Ho, Michael Keane, Felix Kubler, Whitney Newey, and Frank Schorfheide.
TE: Jeff Ely, Johannes Horner, Gilat Levy, Meg Meyer, and Ran Spiegler.