The Choice Theory Approach to Market Research

This paper surveys economic choice theory, stressing developments that permit use of data from psychometric and conjoint experiments to produce market demand forecasts. Alternatives to the widely used multinomial logit model are summarized, and a new method for estimating multinomial probits is described. An integration of choice models with attitudinal scaling and perceptual mapping, within a latent variable system, is described. Estimation of such systems under either “random effects” or “fixed effects” descriptions of heterogeneity across individuals is discussed. Issues in the use of choice models to describe responses from conjoint experiments are presented. New regression diagnostic tests for the consistency of multinomial logit representations are discussed.