The Evolution of Brand Preferences: Evidence from Consumer Migration
利用消费者生活史和购买数据，研究发现品牌偏好是内生的、高度持久的，解释了40%的市场份额地理差异，并构成巨大的进入壁垒，使先发企业长期受益。
We study the long-run evolution of brand preferences, using new data on consumers' life histories and purchases of consumer packaged goods. Variation in where consumers have lived in the past allows us to isolate the causal effect of past experiences on current purchases, holding constant contemporaneous supply-side factors. We show that brand preferences form endogenously, are highly persistent, and explain 40 percent of geographic variation in market shares. Counterfactuals suggest that brand preferences create large entry barriers and durable advantages for incumbent firms and can explain the persistence of early-mover advantage over long periods.