The Intertemporal Dynamics of Consumer Lock-In
研究了信息成本结构变化和时间偏好如何影响消费者搜索和转换行为，导致锁定效应，并通过三个实验验证了初始投资、成本转移和预期不足的作用。
This article examines how dynamic changes in information cost structure and time preferences affect consumers' search and switching behavior over time and lead to lock-in. The information cost structure is conceptualized as a trade-off of initial setup costs and ongoing usage costs. Lock-in is defined as consumers' decreased propensity to search and switch after an initial investment, which is determined both by a preference to minimize immediate costs and by an inability to anticipate the impact of future switching costs. The results of three experiments support the proposed mechanism. Experiment 1 shows that a small initial investment is sufficient to produce lock-in. Experiment 2 shows that the results of a prior investment on lock-in are not due to psychological commitment but to a shift in relative costs of incumbent and new options. Experiment 3 shows that respondents fail to anticipate how their prior investment will lock them in. Copyright 2003 by the University of Chicago.