| Habitual behavior is a phenomena frequently observed by economists. Its apparent violation of the premises of neoclassical theory, and difficulties in its empirical specification, have generated attention by theorists attempting to reconcile these seeming inconsistencies, and efforts by empirical researchers to find ways to include its effects in the analysis of the demand for market and non-market goods.;The following pages assess the effects of habitual behavior upon three different forms of decision-making. Chapters 3 and 4 use the results of a survey of New Mexico mountain bikers, conducted by the author in 1995, to determine how habitual behavior affects both the number of times cyclists decide to visit a mountain biking trail site during a season and the frequency with which cyclists switch sites. In Chapter 3 instrumental variables, created from trips to the site in question the previous season to model a set of stocks of habit, are included in a travel cost model of recreational site selection. In Chapter 4, in a comparison of the propensity to assume risk of male and female cyclists, those more risk averse cyclists are assumed to be both less likely to select dangerous trails to ride and to switch to a new or less familiar site, thus manifesting, in the latter case, habitual behavior. Habit is shown, in Chapter 3, to have a strong effect upon the number of trips taken by mountain bikers to the Elena Gallegos trail site in the Sandia Mountains. In Chapter 4, women who self-select into a risky sport (mountain biking) are shown to select trails of equivalent difficulty to those selected by the men and to switch sites more frequently (be less habitual) than their male counterparts.;Chapter 5 uses the results of a set of laboratory experiments conducted by the author to look at the effects of increasing search costs on habitual purchases of goods. Following a theoretical model constructed by Becker and Stigler (1977) subjects are shown to maintain longer the purchase of a particular set of goods (exhibit habitual behavior), in the face of price inflation, when search costs for alternative, lower priced goods are higher. |
