Vehicle Recalls And Corrective Behavior:

I investigate how effectively recall information on defective vehicles is transmitted from manufacturers to vehicle owners and whether vehicle owners repair defects when the defects are more serious or not. Using data on vehicle recalls in the United States from 2008 to 2012, I find that the severity of the defect has no statistically significant impact on whether people get their cars fixed or not, but the language of the recall notification letter does. I also find that owners show different corrective patterns, depending on their attitudes to risk. Some owners take their corrective actions quickly, once they know that their cars are recalled, regardless of the information conveyed in owner notification letters. On the other hand, others take their actions at later stages of the recall process according to the contexts of the letters. In this sense, vehicle owners are heterogeneous in dealing with risks. The content of the letters plays an important role in increasing correction rates to certain owners. From this finding, I conclude that information transmission to owners regarding recalls should be more clearly regulated, since some drivers respond to the context of the letters, not the actual risks.