Waiting To Give: Stated and Revealed Preferences

We estimate and compare the effect of increased time costs on consumer satisfaction and behavior. We are able to move beyond the existing literature, which focuses on satisfaction and intention, and estimate the effect of waiting time on return behavior. Further, we do so in a prosocial context and our measure of cost is the length of time a blood donor spends waiting. We find that relying on satisfaction data masks important time cost sensitivities; namely, it is not how the donor feels about the wait time that matters for return behavior, but rather the actual duration of the wait. Consistent with theory we develop, our results indicate that waiting has a significant longer-term social cost: we estimate that a 38% increase (equivalent to one standard deviation) in the average wait would result in a 10% decrease in donations per year. History: Accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics. Funding: The authors greatly appreciate the generous financial support of the Australian Research Council [Grant 1095222] and the Australian Red Cross Blood Service (Blood Service) for their continuous support. Supplemental Material: The supplementary material is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/ mnsc.2016.2504. Keywords: time costs * prosocial behavior * blood donation * return behavior * waiting * stated and revealed preferences
1. Introduction We consider the role of time costs on economic behavior. Unlike many costs people face in everyday transactions that are observable to researchers, time costs are often ignored [...]