Recall Searching with and without Recall

We revisit the sequential search problem by Hey (1987). In a 2x2 factorial design, varying fixed and random cost treatments with and without recall, we address open research questions that were originally stated by Hey (1987). Our results provide clear evidence for Hey’s (1987) conjecture that recall negatively affects performance in sequential search. With experience, however, search behaviour with and without recall converges towards the optimal reservation rule. We further find that the utilization of optimal reservation rules is independent from the stochastic nature of the search cost.