We examine referral reward programs (RRP) that are intended for a service firm to encourage its current customers (inductors) to entice their friends (inductees) to purchase the firm's service. By considering the interplay among the firm, the inductor, and the inductee, we solve a "nested"...

The histograms of interpurchase times for frequently purchased packagedgoods have consistently shown pronounced seven-day cycles. Evidence supports that theweekly spike phenomenon is the result of consumers’ regular shopping trip schedules. Weexplore the implications of this peculiar...

This paper investigates the dynamic relation between callers' social ties and their wireless phone service consumption. We construct a large pair-level panel dataset with information on the number of each pair's common contacts, calling activities, prices, and each caller's characteristics over...

John Sutton's (1991) widely acclaimed book on sunk costs and market structure contains several robust predictions. The authors' empirical results across exogenous and endogenous sunk cost markets support most of Sutton's robust predictions. Exogenous sunk cost markets have lower minimum values...

The histograms of interpurchase times for frequently purchased packaged goods have consistently shown pronounced seven-day cycles. Evidence supports that the weekly spike phenomenon is the result of consumers' regular shopping trip schedules. We explore the implications of this peculiar...

Wireless number portability (WNP) is a telecommunication regulatory policy that requires cellular phone service providers to allow customers who switch service subscriptions to retain their original phone numbers. The right to retain the number lowers the switching cost for a consumer. Thus, the...

Price promotions are used extensively in marketing for one simple reason—consumers respond. The sales increase for a brand on promotion could be due to consumers accelerating their purchases (i.e., buying earlier than usual and/or buying more than usual) and/or consumers switching their choice...

Recent reports show that manufacturers in many consumer product industries continue to use coupons as one of their main promotional tools. The rising intensity of coupon competitions, however, makes the issue of having better measures for coupon effects ever more important. This paper proposes a...