Paying not to go to the gym
Paying not to go to the gym
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DOI：
10.1257/aer.96.3.694
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发表时间：
2006-06-01
影响因子：
10.7
通讯作者：
Malmendier, Ulrike
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
DellaVigna, Stefano;Malmendier, Ulrike
消费者如何从一系列合同中进行选择？我们分析了来自美国三家健身俱乐部的一个新数据集，其中包括7，752名会员在三年内的合同选择和日常出勤决策信息。观察到的消费者行为很难与标准的偏好和信念相协调。首先，选择月费超过70美元的合同的会员平均每月参加4.3次。他们每次预期访问的价格超过17美元，尽管他们可以使用10次访问的通行证每次访问支付10美元。平均而言，这些用户在成为会员期间放弃了600美元的节省。其次，选择包月合同的消费者比承诺一年的用户更有可能保持注册超过一年。这是令人惊讶的，因为每月会员支付更高的费用，以选择取消每个月。我们还记录了取消延迟和出勤预期等调查结果。对我们研究结果的主要解释是对未来自我控制或未来效率的过度自信。过度自信的代理高估出勤率以及自动续约的取消概率。我们的研究结果表明，在理性预期假设下，从观察到的合同选择进行推断可能会导致对消费者偏好估计的偏差。
How do consumers choose from a menu of contracts? We analyze a novel dataset from three U.S. health clubs with information on both the contractual choice and the day-to-day attendance decisions of 7,752 members over three years. The observed consumer behavior is difficult to reconcile with standard preferences and beliefs. First, members who choose a contract with a flat monthly fee of over $70 attend on average 4.3 times per month. They pay a price per expected visit of more than $17, even though they could pay $10 per visit using a 10-visit pass. On average, these users forgo savings of $600 during their membership. Second, consumers who choose a monthly contract are 17 percent more likely to stay enrolled beyond one year than users committing for a year. This is surprising because monthly members pay higher fees for the option to cancel each month. We also document cancellation delays and attendance expectations, among other findings. Leading explanations for our findings are overconfidence about future self-control or about future efficiency. Overconfident agents overestimate attendance as well as the cancellation probability of automatically renewed contracts. Our results suggest that making inferences from observed contract choice under the rational expectation hypothesis can lead to biases in the estimation of consumer preferences.