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Choice Models and Permutation Invariance: Demand Estimation in Differentiated Products Markets

Amandeep Singh, Ye Liu, Hema Yoganarasimhan

arXiv 13 Jul 2023 · Econometrics · 2 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2307.07090 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

Choice modeling is at the core of understanding how changes to the competitive landscape affect consumer choices and reshape market equilibria. In this paper, we propose a fundamental characterization of choice functions that encompasses a wide variety of extant choice models. We demonstrate how non-parametric estimators like neural nets can easily approximate such functionals and overcome the curse of dimensionality that is inherent in the non-parametric estimation of choice functions. We demonstrate through extensive simulations that our proposed functionals can flexibly capture underlying consumer behavior in a completely data-driven fashion and outperform traditional parametric models. As demand settings often exhibit endogenous features, we extend our framework to incorporate estimation under endogenous features. Further, we also describe a formal inference procedure to construct valid confidence intervals on objects of interest like price elasticity. Finally, to assess the practical applicability of our estimator, we utilize a real-world dataset from S. Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (1995). Our empirical analysis confirms that the estimator generates realistic and comparable own- and cross-price elasticities that are consistent with the observations reported in the existing literature.

Citation extraction

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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1S. Berry, J. Levinsohn, and A. Pakes (1995) Automobile prices in market equilibrium1.000136100%
2G. Compiani (2022) Market counterfactuals and the specification of multiproduct demand: A nonparametric approach0.9568488%
3V. Chernozhukov, W. K. Newey, V. Quintas-Martinez, and V. Syrgkanis (2021) Automatic debiased machine learning via neural nets for generalized linear regression0.9416383%
4M. Zaheer, S. Kottur, S. Ravanbakhsh, B. Poczos, R. R. Salakhutdinov… (2017) Deep sets0.84333100%
5J. Blanchet, G. Gallego, and V. Goyal (2016) A markov chain approximation to choice modeling0.7373367%
6M. S. Goeree (2008) Limited information and advertising in the us personal computer industry0.7373367%
7J. A. Hausman and D. A. Wise (1978) A conditional probit model for qualitative choice: Discrete decisions recognizing interdependence and heterogeneous preferences0.7373367%
8N. Mehta, S. Rajiv, and K. Srinivasan (2003) Price uncertainty and consumer search: A structural model of consideration set formation0.7373367%
9V. Chernozhukov, W. K. Newey, and R. Singh (2022) Automatic debiased machine learning of causal and structural effects0.64441100%
10V. Chernozhukov, J. C. Escanciano, H. Ichimura, W. K. Newey, and J.… Locally robust semiparametric estimation0.6443267%

Showing the top 10 of 92 scored citations.

Cited by, within the corpus

arXiv econ.EM papers that cite this one, ranked by how heavily they lean on it.

Citing paperIntensityMentionsSections
1Amortized Inference for Correlated Discrete Choice Models via Equivariant Neural Networks0.64422
2Penalized GMM Framework for Inference on Functionals of Nonparametric Instrumental Variable Estimators0.40511
3Estimation of BLP models with high-dimensional controls0.40511
4Tabular Foundation Models for Discrete Choice Estimation0.40511