"The American economy is profoundly dependent on the success of its retailers and the strength of its consumer spending. Yet, how do leading retailers create value for their customers? To a large extent this has been accomplished by streamlining operations and a decades-long focus on cost...

There has been a great deal of anecdotal evidence to suggest that weather affects consumer decision making. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence to explain how the weather affects consumer spending and we detail the psychological mechanism that underlies this phenomenon. Specifically, we...