Álvarez, FranciscoRey Simo, José ManuelSanchis, Raúl G.2023-06-182023-06-1820160377-0427https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/23632It has been recently suggested that both the number of options considered by consumers and their satisfaction when shopping respond to changes in the mean and spread of market prices. A structured analysis of those responses is provided in this paper. A new adverse effect related with consumer’s welfare is presented here, namely a consumer that searches exhaustively among all market options – called maximizer – experiences welfare loss when the dispersion of prices is too high. In fact, her welfare exhibits an inverted-U shape with respect to the standard deviation σ of prices so that an increase in price spread produces more welfare for small values of σ but it has a negative effect for larger values of σ. This new phenomenon is termed σ-overload. It is also shown that a consumer that is content with shopping from a reduced sample of options – a satisficer – avoids σ-overload by adapting her search behavior to the increase in spread. A quantitative assessment of consumer’s behavior and welfare with respect to changes in the mean and dispersion of prices under different scenarios is also provided.engjournal articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cam.2015.03.008restricted accessConsumer behaviorTime allocationChoice overloadPrice distribution.Opinión pública (Sociología)Microeconomía6114.15 Opinión Publica5307.15 Teoría Microeconómica