This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

Shrouded Attributes, Consumer Myopia, and Information Suppression in Competitive Markets

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Xavier Gabaix (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and National Bureau of Economic Research)
David Laibson (Harvard University and National Bureau of Economic Research)

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

Bayesian consumers infer that hidden add-on prices (e.g., the cost of ink for a printer) are likely to be high prices. If consumers are Bayesian, firms will not shroud information in equilibrium. However, shrouding may occur in an economy with some myopic (or unaware) consumers. Such shrouding creates an inefficiency, which firms may have an incentive to eliminate by educating their competitors' customers. However, if add-ons have close substitutes, a "curse of debiasing" arises, and firms will not be able to profitably debias consumers by unshrouding add-ons. In equilibrium, two kinds of exploitation coexist. Optimizing firms exploit myopic consumers through marketing schemes that shroud high-priced add-ons. In turn, sophisticated consumers exploit these marketing schemes. It is not possible to profitably drive away the business of sophisticates. It is also not possible to profitably lure either myopes or sophisticates to nonexploitative firms. We show that informational shrouding flourishes even in highly competitive markets, even in markets with costless advertising, and even when the shrouding generates allocational inefficiencies. Copyright (c) 2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology..

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/qjec.2006.121.2.505
File Format: text/html
File Function: link to full text
Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Publisher Info
Article provided by MIT Press in its journal Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Volume (Year): 121 (2006)
Issue (Month): 2 (May)
Pages: 505-540
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML, plain text, BibTeX, RIS (EndNote), ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:tpr:qjecon:v:121:y:2006:i:2:p:505-540

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/

Order Information:
Web: http://mitpress.mit.edu/journal-home.tcl?issn=00335533

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).

Related research
Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Jerry A. Hausman, 1979. "Individual Discount Rates and the Purchase and Utilization of Energy-Using Durables," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 33-54, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Armstrong, Mark, 2006. "Price discrimination," MPRA Paper 4693, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  3. Salop, Steven C, 1993. "Exclusionary Vertical Restraints Law: Has Economics Mattered?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 168-72, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Stefano Della Vigna & Ulrike Malmendier, 2004. "Contract Design and Self-control: Theory and Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 119(2), pages 353-402, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Kyle Bagwell, 2005. "The Economic Analysis of Advertising," Discussion Papers 0506-01, Columbia University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Glenn Ellison, 2005. "A Model of Add-on Pricing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 120(2), pages 585-637, May.
    Other versions:
  7. Sendhil Mullainathan & Andrei Shleifer, 2005. "The Market for News," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1031-1053, September. [Downloadable!]
  8. Ausubel, Lawrence M, 1991. "The Failure of Competition in the Credit Card Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 50-81, March.
  9. Leeat Yariv, 2004. "Safety in Markets: An Impossibility Theorem for Dutch Books," Theory workshop papers 658612000000000072, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  10. Ali Hortaç Su & Chad Syverson, 2004. "Product Differentiation, Search Costs, And Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry: A Case Study of S&P 500 Index Funds," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 119(2), pages 403-456, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. David Laibson & Xavier Gabaix, 2004. "Competition and Consumer Confusion," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 663, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
  12. Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Boyan Jovanovic, 1982. "Truthful Disclosure of Information," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(1), pages 36-44, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Leeat Yariv & David Laibson, 2004. "Safety in Markets: An Impossibility Theorem for Dutch Books," 2004 Meeting Papers 867, Society for Economic Dynamics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  15. Perloff, Jeffrey M & Salop, Steven C, 1985. "Equilibrium with Product Differentiation," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(1), pages 107-20, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Salop, Steven & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Bargains and Ripoffs: A Model of Monopolistically Competitive Price Dispersion," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(3), pages 493-510, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  17. Spence, A Michael, 1977. "Consumer Misperceptions, Product Failure and Producer Liability," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(3), pages 561-72, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Rogers, Kevin & SinkeyJr., Joseph F., 1999. "An analysis of nontraditional activities at U.S. commercial banks," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 25-39, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Caplin, Andrew & Nalebuff, Barry, 1991. "Aggregation and Imperfect Competition: On the Existence of Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 25-59, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  20. Klemperer, Paul, 1987. "Markets with Consumer Switching Costs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 102(2), pages 375-94, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Edward L. Glaeser, 2005. "The Political Economy of Hatred," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 120(1), pages 45-86, January.
    Other versions:
  22. Lal, Rajiv & Matutes, Carmen, 1994. "Retail Pricing and Advertising Strategies," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(3), pages 345-70, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  24. Sharon Oster & Fiona Scott Morton, 2005. "Behavioral Biases Meet the Market: The Case of Magazine Subscription Prices," Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy, Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 5(1), pages 1323-1323. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  25. Ginger Zhe Jin & Phillip Leslie, 2003. "The Effect Of Information On Product Quality: Evidence From Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 118(2), pages 409-451, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  26. Diamond, Peter A., 1971. "A model of price adjustment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 156-168, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  27. Stahl, Dale O, II, 1989. "Oligopolistic Pricing with Sequential Consumer Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 700-712, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  28. Farrell, Joseph & Klemperer, Paul, 2006. "Coordination and Lock-In: Competition with Switching Costs and Network Effects," CEPR Discussion Papers 5798, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  29. Tanjim Hossain & John Morgan, 2006. "...Plus Shipping and Handling: Revenue (Non) Equivalence in Field Experiments on eBay," Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy, Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 6(2), pages 1429-1429. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  30. Hausman, Jerry A & Joskow, Paul L, 1982. "Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Appliance Efficiency Standards," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(2), pages 220-25, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  31. Haiyan Shui & Lawrence M. Ausubel, 2004. "Consumer Time Inconsistency: Evidence from a market experiment in the credit card market," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 176, Econometric Society.
  32. Butters, Gerard R, 1977. "Equilibrium Distributions of Sales and Advertising Prices," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(3), pages 465-91, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? There are over 18000 authors registered on RePEc Author Service.

This page was last updated on 2008-12-17.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.