TY - JOUR
T1 - Extra-experimental scarcity impacts hypothetical operant demand
T2 - A natural SARS-CoV-2 eperiment
AU - Reed, Derek D.
AU - Kaplan, Brent A.
AU - Oda, Fernanda S.
AU - Strickland, Justin C.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2023/2
Y1 - 2023/2
N2 - Behavioral economic demand models quantify the extent to which an organism defends its consumption of a commodity. Commodity purchase tasks permit humans a quick yet psychometrically sound approach to assessing commodity demand for various retail products. Operant behavioral economic literature suggests economy type (open vs closed) can significantly alter demand, yet this effect is largely undocumented in the commodity purchase task literature. In this study, we leveraged the market pressures for retail goods (hand lotion and sanitizer; paper towels and toilet paper; soda and water) resulting from SARS-CoV-2 into a natural experiment comparing within-subject demand across two time-points during the pandemic using a crowdsourced approach. Results suggest that hypothetical commodity purchase tasks are sensitive to extra-experimental market pressures (e.g., scarcity due to the closing of economies), adding additional confidence to the self-report nature of purchase task responding and providing further construct validity to these approaches.
AB - Behavioral economic demand models quantify the extent to which an organism defends its consumption of a commodity. Commodity purchase tasks permit humans a quick yet psychometrically sound approach to assessing commodity demand for various retail products. Operant behavioral economic literature suggests economy type (open vs closed) can significantly alter demand, yet this effect is largely undocumented in the commodity purchase task literature. In this study, we leveraged the market pressures for retail goods (hand lotion and sanitizer; paper towels and toilet paper; soda and water) resulting from SARS-CoV-2 into a natural experiment comparing within-subject demand across two time-points during the pandemic using a crowdsourced approach. Results suggest that hypothetical commodity purchase tasks are sensitive to extra-experimental market pressures (e.g., scarcity due to the closing of economies), adding additional confidence to the self-report nature of purchase task responding and providing further construct validity to these approaches.
KW - Behavioral economics
KW - COVID-19
KW - Demand
KW - Economy type
KW - Scarcity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85146077558&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85146077558&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.beproc.2022.104817
DO - 10.1016/j.beproc.2022.104817
M3 - Article
C2 - 36592650
AN - SCOPUS:85146077558
SN - 0376-6357
VL - 205
JO - Behavioural Processes
JF - Behavioural Processes
M1 - 104817
ER -