Abstract
This should be the golden age of demand research. Many of the constraints of the past have relaxed when it comes to data collection. Yet the methodologies of demand analysis created by thought leaders such as Lester Taylor (1972, 1974; Houthakker and Taylor 2010) have not grown at the same pace and are holding back our understanding and power of prediction. Demand research is, of course, highly important. On the macro-level, governments and businesses need to know what to expect by way of aggregate or sectorial demand, such as for housing or energy. On the micro-level, every firm wants to know who its potential buyers are, their willingness to pay, their price sensitivity, what product features they value, and what they like about competing products (Holden and Nagle 2001). Yet it is always difficult to determine demand. It is easy to graph a hypothetical curve or equation in the classroom but hard to determine the real world nature of demand and the factors that go into it.