Inattentive Consumers in Markets for Services

Sitzia, Stefania, Zheng, Jiwei and Zizzo, Daniel (2015) Inattentive Consumers in Markets for Services. Theory and Decision, 79 (2). pp. 307-332. ISSN 0040-5833

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Abstract

In an experiment on markets for services, we find that consumers are likely to stick to default tariffs and achieve suboptimal outcomes. We find that inattention to the task of choosing a better tariff is likely to be a substantial problem in addition to any task and tariff complexity effect. The institutional setup on which we primarily model our experiment is the UK electricity and gas markets, and our conclusion is that the new measures by the UK regulator Ofgem to improve consumer outcomes are likely to be of limited impact.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an open access article. The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	complexity,inattention ,defaults ,services ,energy
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	28 Jan 2015 14:56
Last Modified:	19 Apr 2023 00:29
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/52021
DOI:	10.1007/s11238-014-9466-8

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