Recall searching with and without recall

We revisit the sequential search problem by Hey (J Econ Behav Organ 8:137–144, <CitationRef CitationID="CR16">1987</CitationRef>). In a 2 <InlineEquation ID="IEq1"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$\times $$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <mo>×</mo> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation> 2 factorial design, varying fixed and random cost treatments with and without recall, we address open research questions that were originally stated by Hey (<CitationRef CitationID="CR16">1987</CitationRef>). Our results provide clear evidence for Hey’s (<CitationRef CitationID="CR16">1987</CitationRef>) conjecture that recall negatively affects performance in sequential search. With experience, however, search behavior with and without recall converges toward the optimal reservation rule. We further find that the utilization of optimal reservation rules is independent from the stochastic nature of the search cost. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014