Testing the behavior of rationally inattentive consumers in a residential water market

Xiangrui Wang, Jukwan Lee, Jia Yan and Gary Thompson ()

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2018, vol. 92, issue C, 344-359

Abstract: Rationally inattentive consumers tend to apply simplified heuristics when making decisions. We test the hypothesis of rational inattention in the context of residential water usage where water bills typically account for a small fraction of household expenditures and only attract casual attention. We begin by rigorously testing whether or not residential water customers exhibit evidence of rational inattention. We then propose a heuristic water demand model to explore the decision-making of rationally inattentive consumers and validate the model by comparing the model with the discrete-continuous choice model on attentive and fully informed decision makers in out-of-sample predictions.

Keywords: Rationally inattentive consumers; Residential water demand; Increasing block pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 L95 Q21 Q25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:92:y:2018:i:c:p:344-359

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2018.09.004

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