Effects of Product Availability: Experimental Evidence

Christopher Conlon and Julie Mortimer

No 16506, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Product availability impacts many industries such as transportation, events, and retail, yet little empirical evidence documents the importance of stocking decisions for firm profits, vertical relationships, or consumers. We conduct several experiments, exogenously removing top-selling products from a set of vending machines and analyzing substitution patterns and profit impacts of the changed product availability using nonparametric analyses and structural demand estimation. We find substantial switching to alternate products, and evidence of misaligned incentives between upstream and downstream firms in the choice of which products to carry. We discuss the trade-offs of both empirical approaches for analyzing product availability effects generally.

JEL-codes: L0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-10
Note: IO
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Working Paper: Effects of Product Availability: Experimental Evidence (2010)
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