THE SEARCH FOR CONSISTENCY IN ECONOMIC SEARCH

Previous experimental work has discovered several high performing heur istic strategies in the search for the most economic price of a good, in situations where the purchaser has partial prior knowledge of the p rice distribution. It appeared previously, however, that individuals d o not use a given search rule consistently. This paper describes a mod ified experimental framework that investigates this apparent inconsist ency in search behaviour. Results are analysed at the individual level rather than in aggregate. The paper concludes that individuals do ado pt consistent strategies subject to certain identified caveats. It is suggested that inconsistent behaviour is associated with decision diff iculty, very low search costs, and subjects' intellectual ability. Mor eover, it concludes that the strategy most frequently adopted is fairl y crude and is not the best performing one.