Dם Customers Learn from Experience? Evidence from Retail Banking

Management Science (2013) Vol. 59(9), 2019-2035

36 Pages Posted: 17 Sep 2013

See all articles by Itai Ater

Itai Ater

Tel Aviv University - The Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration

Vardit Landsman

Tel Aviv University - Faculty of Management; Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) - Erasmus School of Economics (ESE)

Date Written: October 25, 2012

Abstract

We study customers’ adoption and subsequent switching decisions, with regard to a menu of three-part tariff plans offered by a commercial bank. Using a rich panel data set covering 70,510 fee-based checking accounts over 30 months, before and after the introduction of the plans, we find that most customers adopt non-cost-minimizing plans, preferring plans with large monthly allowances and high fixed payments. Furthermore, after adoption, customers who exceed their allowances and consequently pay overage fees are more likely to switch to plans with larger allowances than customers who do not experience such fees. Notably, after switching, these overage-paying customers pay higher monthly payments than before. In contrast, switching customers who did not pay overage payments before switching pay less after switching. Our findings, unlike those of previous research on experience-based learning, suggest that the behavior of experienced customers does not converge to the predictions of neoclassical models. We propose that ‘overage aversion’, which is closely related to loss aversion and mental accounting, is the most plausible explanation for our findings.

Keywords: tariff choice, non-linear pricing, switching, learning, flat-rate

Suggested Citation

Ater, Itai and Landsman, Vardit, Dם Customers Learn from Experience? Evidence from Retail Banking (October 25, 2012). Management Science (2013) Vol. 59(9), 2019-2035, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2326917

Itai Ater (Contact Author)

Tel Aviv University - The Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration ( email )

P.O. Box 39010
Ramat Aviv Tel Aviv 69972, 69978
Israel

Vardit Landsman

Tel Aviv University - Faculty of Management ( email )

P.O. Box 39010
Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, 69978
Israel

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) - Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) ( email )

P.O. Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam, NL 3062 PA
Netherlands

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