T12

See the scoped evidence_register and qualification_protocol. Structural plausibility, descriptive surveys and laboratory benchmarks do not alone identify a local commercial policy effect.

See the scoped evidence_register and qualification_protocol. Structural plausibility, descriptive surveys and laboratory benchmarks do not alone identify a local commercial policy effect.

Pre-action shortlist, need, role, constraints and prior exposure can influence assignment and outcomes. Observed funnel rates mix these states. Conditioning on them helps prediction but does not itself identify a causal effect. Compare feasible contact/evaluation/implementation policies, including no action when appropriate, on a stable eligible population. The 95-5 in-market heuristic and pre-contact winner-shortlist prevalence have different denominators and identify no 95% value-creation split or geometric headcount-decay law.

• Ningyin Xu — Reference Dependent Pricing — deposited 16 July 2026. Repository and dissertation. Full PDF inspected. Randomized base-price histories across 818 food-vending locations during 2024, followed by equal current-price discount conditions in 2025. Source: https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/records/8v3yz-xrr12
• Dubé, Morozov, She and Tuchman — The Effects of Ads on Beliefs and Implications for Consumer Search — written 31 July, posted 7 August, BFI release 17 August 2026. Paper and full PDF. Preregistered experiment, 17,775 Prolific participants, simulated bookstore; randomized ads/content/price and separate belief/shopping samples avoid priming. Data are from 2025. Source: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-papers/the-effects-of-ads-on-beliefs-and-implications-for-consumer-search/
• Martin Bichler — Agentic Markets — 6 June 2026. Full journal article. Conceptual synthesis of agent search, differentiation, market power and platform architecture. Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12525-026-00906-y
• G2 — The Answer Economy — 15 April 2026. Primary report. Commercial survey; methods/findings inspected. March online sample of 1,076 B2B decision makers and 39 marketer interviews across regions. Reports AI research alongside continued Google use and frequent inaccuracies. Source: https://learn.g2.com/g2-2026-ai-search-insight-report
• G2 — The Evaluation Maze — 22 July 2026. Primary report. June online survey of 1,038 decision makers plus 55 interviews. Forty percent name evaluation their longest stage; 39% name security the largest post-selection delay; 49% report a CFO veto in the past year. Source: https://sell.g2.com/2026-buyer-behavior-report

• Retrospective commercial surveys motivate buyer-state measurement. Effects need randomization or justified exchangeability, positivity, consistency and interference handling; conditional effects are averages, not identifiable individual effects.
• reference-history effects in this setting; reported approximately 28% profit improvement is a structural counterfactual, not deployed randomized profit uplift. Local competition and crossed-out-price cues limit transfer. C2/C5.
• lottery-incentivized shopping, unincentivized belief reports, one advertised book, no long-run enterprise brand effect. C2/C3/C5.
• no new calibrated market experiment. Lower technical search costs do not guarantee exhaustive search, equal information, higher welfare or a particular equilibrium. C2/C3/C7/C8.

Compare feasible contact/evaluation/implementation policies, including no action when appropriate, on a stable eligible population. The 95-5 in-market heuristic and pre-contact winner-shortlist prevalence have different denominators and identify no 95% value-creation split or geometric headcount-decay law.