EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

On the Importance of Context in Sequential Search

Yu Chin Hsiao, Simon Kemp and Maroš Servátka

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We experimentally investigate whether framing an individual-choice decision in a market setting results in a different outcome than when the decision is described in a context-free frame. We further explore whether the context effect is triggered solely by the frame or whether a richer descriptive content is required to establish familiarity with the decision-making environment. Understanding what constitutes context is central to formulating practical recommendations aiming to improve the quality of individual decisions. Our results show that framing a sequential search problem as selling houses leads to better decisions than a context-free frame. Manipulating whether or not the framed decision-making scenario includes a description of the house, which would be naturally available in a real estate market, does not impact the length of search or the value of accepted offers.

Keywords: Schema Activation; Secretary Problem; Sequential Search; Context; Framing; Decision-Making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-11-08
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/97284/1/MPRA_paper_97284.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: On the Importance of Context in Sequential Search (2020) Downloads
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:pra:mprapa:97284

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-30
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:97284