eprintid: 10071424 rev_number: 21 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/10/07/14/24 datestamp: 2019-04-02 10:37:30 lastmod: 2020-08-07 16:30:58 status_changed: 2019-09-24 15:37:51 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Smith, A creators_name: Allenby, G title: Demand Models with Random Partitions ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: A01 divisions: B04 divisions: C05 divisions: F49 keywords: Bayesian inference, location-scale family, Polya urn, Markov chain Monte Carlo, price elasticity note: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. abstract: Many economic models of consumer demand require researchers to partition sets of products or attributes prior to the analysis. These models are common in applied problems when the product space is large or spans multiple categories. While the partition is traditionally fixed a priori, we let the partition be a model parameter and propose a Bayesian method for inference. The challenge is that demand systems are commonly multivariate models that are not conditionally conjugate with respect to partition indices, precluding the use of Gibbs sampling. We solve this problem by constructing a new location-scale partition distribution that can generate random-walk Metropolis-Hastings proposals and also serve as a prior. Our method is illustrated in the context of a store-level category demand model where we find that allowing for partition uncertainty is important for preserving model flexibility, improving demand forecasts, and learning about the structure of demand. date: 2020 date_type: published publisher: American Statistical Association official_url: https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.2019.1604360 oa_status: green full_text_type: other language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1644194 doi: 10.1080/01621459.2019.1604360 lyricists_name: Smith, Adam lyricists_id: ASMIA85 actors_name: Smith, Adam actors_id: ASMIA85 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Journal of the American Statistical Association volume: 115 number: 529 pagerange: 47-65 issn: 0162-1459 citation: Smith, A; Allenby, G; (2020) Demand Models with Random Partitions. Journal of the American Statistical Association , 115 (529) pp. 47-65. 10.1080/01621459.2019.1604360 <https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.2019.1604360>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10071424/1/dmrp.pdf