Walking to work today (yeah, I know it's Sunday and I'm in the office instead of out on my bike), I thought about what a fertile ground the purchase of hybrid cars could be for rational game theorists as I was trying to count the number of people using their moon roofs to the numbers who were not. I kept thinking about how much of a waste a lot of car accessories are for people who don't actually use them. I also stopped by a convenience store to buy a megamillions lottery ticket, and thought about how irrational the purchase is in the whole scheme of things. I probably had a much better chance of getting hit by a car on my walk to the store than I do winning the jackpot. Still, with a 1 in 39.8 chance of winning something, a megamillions ticket is worth something like $.60, so one's really only "throwing away" 40 cents.

The kind of game theory-esque calculations involving the choice to buy a hybrid have been discussed on in this forum since its creation. I'm wondering if anyone has seen any scholarly articles on it anywhere? I'm not talking about some newspaper or magazine article telling me that I'm irrational for spending a premium on a car I won't recoup for 5 years or whatever, I'm talking about a more substantive piece of work.

stevejust,

I replied to this some time ago. Apparently I was interrupted or something before I completed it since there is no sign of it now. I will now rectify the situation.

I know of no serious articles using game theory or probability models to do the kind of thing you are interested in. Frequently such approaches tend to used the concept of utility rather than value - that is, What is something worth to me? rather than What it is worth on the market?

But since this is such a subjective concept, it is difficult to quantify. Perhaps something like Bayesian statistics would be helpful. It has been said, for example, that hybriders come in three flavors; greenie, cheapie, and techie. If it were possible to quantify and then weigh these, it might be possible to assign each person their own hybrid score. Then statements like the following could be made. Fine tuning such a model could lead to a specific recommendation for an Insight, Prius, FEH, etc.

But I haven't a clue even about how to get started on this.

'06 FEH 2WD "Sainte Marie"