The process of consumer choice can be analysed in line with the proposals of Guadagni
and Little 24 and Kamakura and Russell 25 as follows: when a consumer faces a decision to purchase, he assigns a utility to each of the available alternatives, opting fi nally for the one that provides her with greater utility. There are
two components to this utility function (one deterministic, represented by V iht , and one
random, represented by e iht ) This is refl ected in the expression