This paper estimates the reference-price effects in consumers’ car purchase decisions exploiting a unique panel data-set on the non-negotiable daily list prices for used cars advertised by a large national dealership. Guided by the theory of Köszegi and Rabin (The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1133–1165, 2006), the paper identifies the reference price for a car as the car’s list price on the previous day, a point with a large probability mass in car buyers’ price expectations. The paper finds that — controlling for a car’s actual price, its detailed attributes, the competitive environment, and a rich set of fixed effects — a positive (negative) deviation of the car’s actual price from the previous day’s list price lowers (increases) its daily sale probability significantly more than what can be accounted for by the standard effect of the car’s resulting actual price. The magnitudes of the estimated reference-price effects are comparable to that of the standard price effect and are significantly stronger for cars with more exposures to prior consumer search. Implications for the dynamic pricing strategy for car dealers (and retailers in general) and inflation dynamics are discussed.

本文利用一个独特的面板数据集来估计参考价格对消费者汽车购买决策的影响，该数据集是由一家大型全国经销商广告的二手车不可协商的每日标价。以 Köszegi 和 Rabin 的理论为指导（经济学季刊, 1133–1165, 2006)，论文将汽车的参考价格确定为汽车前一天的标价，这一点在购车者的价格预期中具有很大的概率质量。该论文发现——控制汽车的实际价格、其详细属性、竞争环境和一组丰富的固定效应——汽车实际价格与前一天标价的正（负）偏差会降低（增加）其每日销售概率显着高于汽车实际价格的标准效应。估计的参考价格效应的幅度与标准价格效应的幅度相当，并且对于先前消费者搜索有更多曝光度的汽车来说明显更强。