The impact of research design on consumer price recall accuracy: An integrative review

For almost half a century, researchers have examined consumer knowledge of prices, often with disturbing and conflicting results. Although the general findings suggest that consumer knowledge of prices is poorer than assumed in neoclassical economic theory, significant variations among results exist . The authors synthesize findings from prior studies to determine the impac t of research design choices on price recall accuracy measures. A meta-anal ysis indicates that a significant amount of variation in the accuracy of co nsumers' price recall is related to research design characteristics such as the presence of financial rewards, respondents' task size, and the price e licitation approach. Implications for price awareness research are discusse d.