When indulgence gets the best of you: Unexpected consequences of prepayment

Ali Besharat and Gia Nardini

Journal of Business Research, 2018, vol. 92, issue C, 321-328

Abstract: Consumers often pay for consumption events up front. For example, consumers may pay an entrance fee for a food festival or a VIP pass to skip the line at a nightclub. However, research has yet to investigate how this prepayment affects consumers' subsequent consumption decisions. This paper investigates the effect of prepayment on escalation of commitment and the unexpected effects on subsequent consumption decisions. Specifically, we investigate consumers' inclination to indulge and spend once they have made a prepayment in the form of money or time. Our findings from a field study and two experiments suggest that under certain conditions, prepayment results in increased spending and indulgent consumption.

Keywords: Escalation of commitment; Prepayment; Increased spending; Food consumption; Consumption experience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296318303709
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:92:y:2018:i:c:p:321-328

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.07.051

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().