Decision costs and price sensitivity: Field experimental evidence from India

Poor people often exhibit puzzlingly high sensitivity to low prices of important consumer health goods. This paper proposes decision costs as one explanation: whether a person buys at a price depends on whether she carefully considers the offer, which itself depends on price. A simple model predicts that deliberation costs (1) increase sensitivity to low prices; (2) can prevent cost-sharing from targeting products to buyers with high value; and (3) can have larger effects on poorer people. The principal contribution of this paper is a field experiment that sold hand-washing soap in rural India. Participants were randomly assigned to be offered soap for either a low or very low price, which was experimentally crossed with assignment to a control group or to a treatment that required deliberation. Results matched predictions of the model: the treatment decreased price sensitivity relative to the control group, and increased targeting of product take-up by need.