Scarcity Strategies for Product Launch - Influencing Observational Learning
New consumer products introduced to the market are regularly accompanied by shortages. It is important to understand why such shortages occur, as they suggest markets may not be functioning well, and in particular that consumers may suffer.
This project will examine under what circumstances sellers have a strategic incentive to create shortages intentionally, so as to increase demand for their products. Unlike earlier research on such seller scarcity strategies, we focus on how scarcity can affect consumers’ beliefs about product quality, by influencing what they can learn from observing each others’ purchases.
The project Scarcity Strategies for Product Launch - Influencing Observational Learning consists of 3 parts.
Part 1 will develop new theory for settings where consumers can observe if earlier shortages occurred.
Part 2 will do the same for settings where consumers cannot observe shortages but can observe earlier sales.
Part 3 will consist of a series of laboratory experiments, to test the predictions from the theory, where we will vary precisely what experimental subjects can observe.
Researchers
| Name | Title | Job responsibilities |
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Funded by:
Scarcity Strategies for Product Launch - Influencing Observational Learning has received a three year funding from Independent research Foundation Denmark.
Period: January 2019 - December 2021
External members:
| Name | Title | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexei Parakhonyak | Associate Professor | ||