Is it possible to use segment specific exponents in smrt?

Question

When calibrating share of choice data can i apply different scale factors for different groups of people and still calcate the aggregate soc?

Answer 1

You can do this, but first of all, you should ask yourself a question: Why to play with exponent at all, and why to apply different exponents to different groups. Do you have a really good market data for different submarkets? Do you expect that your survey data should mimic it? And why those submarkets should have different scale parameters? I'ts much easier and often safer not to change exponent. Anyway, in custom built simulators segment specific scale parameters are trivial (just multiply selected subgroups utilities by whatever you chose). In the SMRT (at least in my version) it's harder, you have to edit hbu files or conduct several simulations and aggregate you result.

Comments

and consider reading disscusion about scale parameter on SS LinkedIn profile.

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Hi ikomenda
Thank you for this reply. I'm thinking about "tuning" the smrt results as follows: When I know that one identified segment in REAL world is less price sensitive (low involvement, low price awareness) how coul I capture that in simulations? The idea was just to apply a different exponent but maybe there are other ideas?
Rgds
Steve