Choice Model Simulation - Defining Consumer Utility

Defining Consumer Utility

Suppose a student is trying to decide which pub he/she should go for a beer after his/her last final exam. Suppose there are two pubs in the town of the college: an Irish pub and an American pub. The researcher wishes to predict which pub he/she will choose based on the price (P) of beer and the distance (D) to each pub, assuming they are known to the researcher. Then, the consumer utilities for choosing the Irish pub and the American pub can be defined:

(1)
(2)

where captures unobserved variables that affect consumer utilities.

Read more about this topic:  Choice Model Simulation

Famous quotes containing the words defining, consumer and/or utility:

    The industrial world would be a more peaceful place if workers were called in as collaborators in the process of establishing standards and defining shop practices, matters which surely affect their interests and well-being fully as much as they affect those of employers and consumers.
    Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)

    Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps.
    Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)

    Moral sensibilities are nowadays at such cross-purposes that to one man a morality is proved by its utility, while to another its utility refutes it.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)