Recent advances in data collection and data storage techniques enable marketing researchers to study the characteristics of many actual transactions and purchases, that is, revealed preference data. Owing to the large number of observations and the wealth of available information, a detailed analysis of these data is possible. This analysis usually addresses the effects of marketing instruments and the effects of household-specific characteristics on the transaction. Quantitative models are useful tools for this analysis. In this book we review several such models for revealed preference data. In this chapter we give a general introduction and provide brief introductions to the various chapters.

Introduction

It is the aim of this book to present various important and practically relevant quantitative models, which can be used in present-day marketing research. The reader of this book should become able to apply these methods in practice, as we provide the data which we use in the various illustrations and we also add the relevant computer code for EViews if it is not already included in version 3.1. Other statistical packages that include estimation routines for some of the reviewed models are, for example, LIMDEP, SPSS and SAS. Next, the reader should come to understand (the flavor of) the latest methodological developments as these are put forward in articles in, for example, Marketing Science, the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Consumer Research and the International Journal of Research in Marketing. For that matter, we also discuss interesting new developments in the relevant sections.

The contents of this book originate from lecture notes prepared for undergraduate and graduate students in Marketing Research and in Econometrics.