A survey-based procedure for measuring uncertainty or heterogeneous preferences in markets
By: Pai-Ling Yin
Series: Working paper / Division of Research, Harvard Business School -- 06-009; Working paper (Harvard Business School. Division of Research) -- 06-009
Publisher: Division of Research, Harvard Business School
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 24
Description: This paper shows how surveys can be used to generate a measure of the amount of information and/or heterogeneity of preferences within a market. This measure can be employed as a regressor in empirical work where variance in the dependent variable (e.g., auction prices, retail price dispersion, or investment choices in stocks, R&D, or education) might be explained by uncertainty about the value of the item being sold or the returns to investment choice and/or heterogeneous preferences in the market. The effects of incomplete information and heterogeneous preferences are usually relegated to the error term, which a) confounds these effects with other drivers of the error term and b) could lead to heteroskedasticity at best or omitted variable bias at worst.
Notes: "April 22, 2005"--Added t.p.

Includes bibliographical references.