Consumption Self-Control by Rationing Purchase Quantities of Virtue and Vice

摘要

Consumers' attempts to control their unwanted consump- tion impulses influence many everyday purchases with broad implications for marketers' pricing policies. Address- ing theoreticians and practitioners alike, this paper uses mul- tiple empirical methods to show that consumers voluntarily and strategically ration their purchase quantities of goods that are likely to be consumed on impulse and that therefore may pose self-control problems. For example, many regular smokers buy their cigarettes by the pack, although they could easily afford to buy 10-pack cartons.