Costly search can result in consumers restricting their attention to a subset of products–the consideration set–before making a final purchase decision. The search process is usually not observed, which creates econometric challenges. I show that inventory and the availability of different package sizes create new sources of variation to identify search costs in storable goods markets. To evaluate the importance of costly search in these markets, I estimate a dynamic choice model with search frictions using data on purchases of laundry detergent. My estimates show that consumers incur significant search costs, and ignoring costly search overestimates the own-price elasticity for products more often present in consideration sets and underestimates the elasticity of frequently excluded products. Firms employ marketing devices, such as product displays and advertising, to influence consideration sets. These devices have direct and strategic effects, which I explore using the estimates of the model. I find that using marketing devices to reduce a product’s search cost during a price promotion has modest effects on the overall category revenues, and decreases the revenues of some products.

中文翻译：

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储存商品市场中昂贵的搜索和考虑因素

昂贵的搜索结果可能导致消费者在做出最终购买决定之前将注意力集中在产品的一部分（即对价集）上。通常不会观察到搜索过程，这会带来计量方面的挑战。我表明库存和不同包装尺寸的可用性创造了新的变化来源，以识别可存储商品市场中的搜索成本。为了评估在这些市场中进行昂贵搜索的重要性，我估计了一种动态选择模型，该模型使用了有关洗衣粉购买数据的搜索摩擦。我的估计表明，消费者会产生巨大的搜索成本，而忽视昂贵的搜索会高估考虑集中出现的产品的自身价格弹性，而会低估经常被排除的产品的弹性。公司采用行销手段，例如产品展示和广告，以影响对价。这些设备具有直接和战略作用，我将使用模型的估计进行探讨。我发现在价格促销期间使用营销设备减少产品的搜索成本对整体类别收入有适度的影响，并且会降低某些产品的收入。