TY  - JOUR
AU  - Conlon,Christopher T.
AU  - Mortimer,Julie Holland
TI  - Demand Estimation Under Incomplete Product Availability
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14315
PY  - 2008
Y2  - September 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14315
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14315.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Christopher Conlon
Department of Economics
Columbia University
420 W. 118th St.
New York City, NY 10027
E-Mail: cc3264@columbia.edu

Julie H. Mortimer
Department of Economics
Boston College
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
Tel: 617-552-3676
Fax: 617-552-2308
E-Mail: julie.mortimer.2@bc.edu
AB  - Incomplete product availability is an important feature of many markets; ignoring changes in availability may bias demand estimates. We study a new dataset from a wireless inventory system installed on 54 vending machines to track product availability every four hours. The data allow us to account for product availability when estimating demand, and provides a valuable source of variation for identifying substitution patterns. We develop a procedure that allows for changes in product availability even when availability is only observed periodically. We find significant differences in demand estimates, with the corrected model predicting significantly larger impacts of stock-outs on profitability.
ER  -