The Rational Consumer brings together eight articles that represent key points in the development of Robert Hall's ideas on consumption over the past two decades. Since the late 1960s, Robert Hall's research has had a significant impact on the macroeconomic study of consumer behavior. The Rational Consumer brings together eight articles that represent key points in the development of Hall's ideas on consumption over the past two decades. In his introduction, Hall puts this work into perspective, tying together his ideas and pointing to how consumer behavior should work in the future given what he has discovered.Working within the standard intertemporal models of consumption - the overlapping generations model and the infinite lifetime model - Hall's contributions to methodology have been especially important. Particularly noteworthy was his challenge to the prevalent model in which current consumption was seen as deriving from expected future income. Hall argued that consumption was, instead, based upon the actual present discounted value of future income.ContentsIntroduction - The Allocation of Wealth among the Generations of a Family that Lasts Forever - A Theory of Inheritance - The Dynamic Effects of Fiscal Policy in an Economy with Foresight - Consumption Taxes versus Income Taxes: Implications for Economic Growth - Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence - The Sensitivity of Consumption to Transitory Income: Estimates from Panel Data on Households (with Frederic S. Mishkin) - Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption - Survey of Research on the Random Walk of Consumption - The Role of Consumption in Economic Fluctuations

A comprehensive introduction to using the tools and techniques of neuroscience to understand how consumers make decisions about purchasing goods and services. Contrary to the assumptions of economists, consumers are not always rational actors who make decisions in their own best interests. The new field of behavioral economics draws on the insights of psychology to study non-rational decision making. The newer field of consumer neuroscience draws on the findings, tools, and techniques of neuroscience to understand how consumers make judgments and decisions. This book is the first comprehensive treatment of consumer neuroscience, suitable for classroom use or as a reference for business and marketing practitioners. After an overview of the field, the text offers the background on the brain and physiological systems necessary for understanding how they work in the context of decision making and reviews the sensory and perceptual mechanisms that govern our perception and experience. Chapters by experts in the field investigate tools for studying the brain, including fMRI, EEG, eye-tracking, and biometrics, and their possible use in marketing. The book examines the relation of attention, memory, and emotion to consumer behavior; cognitive factors in decision making; and the brain's reward system. It describes how consumers develop implicit associations with a brand, perceptions of pricing, and how consumer neuroscience can encourage healthy behaviors. Finally, the book considers ethical issues raised by the application of neuroscience tools to marketing. Contributors Fabio Babiloni, Davide Baldo, David Brandt, Moran Cerf, Yuping Chen, Patrizia Cherubino, Kimberly Rose Clark, Maria Cordero-Merecuana, William A. Cunningham, Manuel Garcia-Garcia, Ming Hsu, Ana Iorga, Philip Kotler, Carl Marci, Hans Melo, Kai-Markus Müller, Brendan Murray, Ingrid L. C. Nieuwenhuis, Graham Page, Hirak Parikh, Dante M. Pirouz, Martin Reimann, Neal J. Roese, Irit Shapira-Lichter, Daniela Somarriba, Julia Trabulsi, Arianna Trettel, Giovanni Vecchiato, Thalia Vrantsidis, Sarah Walker

The theory of revealed preference has a long, distinguished tradition in economics but lacked a systematic presentation of the theory until now. This book deals with basic questions in economic theory and studies situations in which empirical observations are consistent or inconsistent with some of the best known economic theories.

This book discusses the seminal role played by Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, in the founding of American-style public relations persuasive communication through manipulation of symbols and his huge (and cynical) impact on the American economic and political scene. It provides a substantiated and convincing explanation for what is happening today in Donald Trumps America. In the form of a history of ideas, the book makes clear that the present Trumpian manipulation of democracy and what it means to be American has a long pre-history and continues to go through different phases, involving the cultivation and institutionalisation of strong bonds between business and politics. The book shows how this is intimately linked with a science, intellectualism and practice informed by a series of binary oppositions in human action and interaction (e.g. rationality and irrationality, reason and emotion, mind and body, brain and heart, insider and outsider, us and them) and how unpredictable human nature really is. It makes a convincing argument that being human depends on how successfully we are able to negotiate such apparently contradictory binaries with the intricacies and dynamism of human agency. It is rich and thought provoking and very timely, given the exclusionary politics of fear, anger, hate and nativism we see unfolding not only in the USA but all over the world.

Intelligent, lively, humorous, and thoroughly engaging, "The Predictably Irrational" explains why people often make bad decisions and what can be done about it.

Companies of all kinds have fallen into some of the most fundamental of traps when it comes to consumer marketing; in assuming that the motivation that drives their customers is entirely rational. Enrico Trevisan's The Irrational Consumer builds on the ground breaking works on behavioural economics of authors such as Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler in order to explain the fundamental drivers of customer decisions and how to incorporate these into your business strategy. Learn how consumers respond to different offer architectures and discounts; why they sometimes struggle to see the wood for the trees in a world of ever-increasing options; what are the rules of thumb they develop for making sense of value. Behavioural economics offers organizations perspectives for engaging with customers, whose views on what to buy are strongly driven by contextual factors, such as the framework and the dynamics of choices. Enrico Trevisan's The Irrational Consumer is your 'must-have' primer to this world.

Consumption is the primary economic activity in our post-industrial society. We are consumers, not producers. Consumer behavior analysis is leading heterodox marketing scholarship and innovative applied behavioral work, with much to offer both constituencies. This volume shows how consumer behavior analysis fits within a larger-scale approach to marketing, consumer psychology, behavior analysis and organizational behavior management. Describing both theoretical analyses and empirical studies including laboratory experiments in e-commerce, in-store experiments in grocery shopping, and an analysis of the counterfeit goods market, this book is a working example of translational research. It contains tools and studies to help understand contemporary consumer behavior, particularly for those in marketing. Scholars will appreciate the theory and real-world applications evident in each chapter when considering their own research direction. All students of marketing theory, behavior analysis and consumer choice will find this collection a thought-provoking tool for further understanding of a new behavioral approach to marketing strategy, consumer decisions and marketing firms. This book comprises articles originally published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management.

Over the past half-century, bookselling, like many retail industries, has evolved from an arena dominated by independent bookstores to one in which chain stores have significant market share. And as in other areas of retail, this transformation has often been a less-than-smooth process. This has been especially pronounced in bookselling, argues Laura J. Miller, because more than most other consumer goods, books are the focus of passionate debate. What drives that debate? And why do so many people believe that bookselling should be immune to questions of profit? In Reluctant Capitalists, Miller looks at a century of book retailing, demonstrating that the independent/chain dynamic is not entirely new. It began one hundred years ago when department stores began selling books, continued through the 1960s with the emergence of national chain stores, and exploded with the formation of “superstores” in the 1990s. The advent of the Internet has further spurred tremendous changes in how booksellers approach their business. All of these changes have met resistance from book professionals and readers who believe that the book business should somehow be “above” market forces and instead embrace more noble priorities. Miller uses interviews with bookstore customers and members of the book industry to explain why books evoke such distinct and heated reactions. She reveals why customers have such fierce loyalty to certain bookstores and why they identify so strongly with different types of books. In the process, she also teases out the meanings of retailing and consumption in American culture at large, underscoring her point that any type of consumer behavior is inevitably political, with consequences for communities as well as commercial institutions.

Emotion and Reason in Consumer Behavior provides new insights into the effects that emotion and rational thought have on marketing outcomes. It uses sound academic research at a level students and professionals can understand.

Can economics be passionate? Can it center on people and what really matters to them day-in and day-out. And help us understand their hidden motives for why they do what they do in everyday life? Uri Gneezy and John List are revolutionaries. Their ideas and methods for revealing what really works in addressing big social, business, and economic problems gives us new understanding of the motives underlying human behavior. We can then structure incentives that can get people to move mountains, change their behavior -- or at least get a better deal. But finding the right incentive can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Gneezy and List's pioneering approach is to embed themselves in the factories, schools, communities, and offices where people work, live, and play. Then, through large-scale field experiments conducted "in the wild," Gneezy and List observe people in their natural environments without them being aware that they are observed. Their randomized experiments have revealed ways to close the gap between rich and poor students; to stop the violence plaguing inner-city schools; to decipher whether women are really less competitive than men; to correctly price products and services; and to discover the real reasons why people discriminate. To get the answers, Gneezy and List boarded planes, helicopters, trains, and automobiles to embark on journeys from the foothills of Kilimanjaro to California wineries; from sultry northern India to the chilly streets of Chicago; from the playgrounds of schools in Israel to the boardrooms of some of the world's largest corporations. In The Why Axis, they take us along for the ride, and through engaging and colorful stories, present lessons with big payoffs. Their revelatory, startling, and urgent discoveries about how incentives really work are both revolutionary and immensely practical. This research will change both the way we think about and take action on big and little problems. Instead of relying on assumptions, we can find out, through evidence, what really works. Anyone working in business, politics, education, or philanthropy can use the approach Gneezy and List describe in The Why Axis to reach a deeper, nuanced understanding of human behavior, and a better understanding of what motivates people and why.