Consumer and firm behaviour

LE Europes’ consumer and firm behaviour expertise sits within our Behavioural and Experimental Economics and Consumer Protection practice areas.

We combine stated preference methods for assessing consumer and firm willingness-to-pay (including contingent valuation and choice modelling) with leading-edge developments and applications in behavioural economics. We apply these techniques across multiple industries and policy areas, such as education, regulated industries (energy, finance, and telecommunications), environmental policy reform, international trade and competition assessment.

Our highly-qualified consultants are committed to producing research using academically rigorous techniques in the field of consumer and firm behaviour. These techniques can be used to address issues including:

  • Consumer and firm willingness-to-pay for goods and services
  • Valuation of non-market goods
  • Road-testing policy changes
  • Consumer purchasing decisions and preferences in fast moving consumer goods markets
  • Consumer decisions to seek services abroad
  • The consequences of framing, branding, and pricing strategies on purchasing behaviour and consumer choice
  • Consumer switching and churn behaviour
  • Firm behaviour in regulated industries

We combine valuation techniques with other fieldwork methods such as surveys, behavioural experiments and focus groups, with a wide range of cutting-edge behavioural science techniques to provide tailored advice to our clients.

We implement consumer and firm behaviour research studies across the EU 28 and we have well established links with leading academics in valuation methods who work directly with our core team.

Recent projects

Our expertise in consumer and firm behaviour has been trusted by a wide range of clients, national, international and EU level, in the public and private sector. We present here a short selection of our publications, for more information, you can visit our Consumer and firm behaviour publication page:

  • Estimation of consumers’ and small and medium sized businesses’ willingness-to-pay for security of electricity supply (i.e. the value of lost load) for Ofgem and DECC. The report from this study was published by DECC as part of the documents for the Consultation on the draft Electricity Market Reform Delivery. Link: https://le-europe.eu/publication/estimating-the-value-of-lost-load-voll/
  • Behavioural economics study for the Office of Fair Trading into how partitioned pricing, which is the practice of splitting prices into multiple components, affects consumer decision making. This study builds on our earlier research on the impact of drip pricing (a form of partitioned pricing). Both studies show that such pricing practices impact upon consumer search and purchasing behaviour and lead to a loss in consumer welfare. Link: https://le-europe.eu/publication/partitioned-pric…ment-august-2013/ ‎
  • A study for EC DG Energy to investigate the impact of a product label which provides consumers with information on the environmental performance of products, based on several pan-European behavioural experiments. The experiments examined the impact of alternative labels on purchasing behaviour and willingness-to-pay. Link: https://le-europe.eu/publication/research-on-eu-product-labelling/
  • Analysis of the expected consumer response to postal price rises using a choice experiment methodology for Consumer Focus, in particular the extent to which consumers are likely to switch from first to second class mail and away from postal products all together. Link: https://le-europe.eu/publication/potential-impacts-of-stamp-price-increases-consumer-research/
  • A study on consumer behaviour in the digital environment for the European Parliament, which analysed purchasing strategies and the interaction between consumers and businesses. The impact of e-developments such as interactive advertising and commercial strategies, internet search engines and price comparison sites were examined. Link: https://le-europe.eu/publication/consumer-behaviour-in-a-digital-environment/