The Determinants of Consumer Complaints
利用纽黑文地区数据，分析不同产品消费者投诉差异的经济原因，探讨行业和消费者特征如何影响投诉倾向。
While the rationale for conventional rate-of-return regulation has recently come into question, regulation designed to protect consumers by altering product quality has blossomed. In 1973, for example, eighteen major consumer bills were considered by Congress, among them requirements covering questions of product labelling, unit pricing, and truth in advertising. Currently there are 26 consumer offices scattered throughout the federal government, and over 200 city and state offices. In this paper, I try to explain variance in consumer complaints across different types of products. The tendency of consumers to complain about some products and not others is assumed to depend on some characteristics of both the industry producing that product and the people consuming it. The hypotheses generated are tested using data from the New Haven area. This paper is a first, exploratory study into the economic determinants of consumer complaints.