A hierarchical elimination modeling approach for market structure analysis

A brand-switching model is developed based on a hierarchical elimination decision process. The model incorporates consumers' first-order variety seeking (avoidance) behavior. Some interesting properties of the model are derived and using these properties, it is shown that the model can be used to infer market structure from brand switching data. Finally, the proposed approach is compared with other approaches for inferring market structure suggested in the extant literature.