IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/8636.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Add-on Pricing, Naive Consumers, and the Hidden Welfare Costs of Education

Author

Listed:
  • Kosfeld, Michael
  • Schüwer, Ulrich

Abstract

Previous research shows that firms shroud high add-on prices in competitive markets with naive consumers leading to inefficiency. We analyze the effects of regulatory intervention via educating naive consumers on equilibrium prices and welfare. Our model allows firms to shroud, unshroud, or partially unshroud add-on prices. Results show that consumer education may increase welfare; however, it may also decrease welfare if education is insufficient to alter the equilibrium information and pricing strategy of firms. Educating consumers may do more harm than good and should thus only be considered if the regulator is sufficiently well informed about consumer and firm behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Kosfeld, Michael & Schüwer, Ulrich, 2011. "Add-on Pricing, Naive Consumers, and the Hidden Welfare Costs of Education," CEPR Discussion Papers 8636, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8636
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP8636
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Spiegler, Ran, 2014. "Bounded Rationality and Industrial Organization," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199334261.
    2. Christine Jolls & Cass R. Sunstein, 2006. "Debiasing through Law," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 199-242, January.
    3. James M. Lacko & Janis K. Pappalardo, 2010. "The Failure and Promise of Mandated Consumer Mortgage Disclosures: Evidence from Qualitative Interviews and a Controlled Experiment with Mortgage Borrowers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 516-521, May.
    4. Glaeser, Edward L. & Ujhelyi, Gergely, 2010. "Regulating misinformation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(3-4), pages 247-257, April.
    5. Xavier Gabaix & David Laibson, 2018. "Shrouded attributes, consumer myopia and information suppression in competitive markets," Chapters, in: Victor J. Tremblay & Elizabeth Schroeder & Carol Horton Tremblay (ed.), Handbook of Behavioral Industrial Organization, chapter 3, pages 40-74, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Mark Armstrong, 2008. "Interactions between Competition and Consumer Policy," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 4.
    7. James J. Choi & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian, 2010. "Why Does the Law of One Price Fail? An Experiment on Index Mutual Funds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(4), pages 1405-1432, April.
    8. Mark Armstrong & John Vickers & Jidong Zhou, 2009. "Consumer Protection and the Incentive to Become Informed," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 399-410, 04-05.
    9. Susan E. Woodward & Robert E. Hall, 2010. "Consumer Confusion in the Mortgage Market: Evidence of Less Than a Perfectly Transparent and Competitive Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 511-515, May.
    10. Henderson, Brian J. & Pearson, Neil D., 2011. "The dark side of financial innovation: A case study of the pricing of a retail financial product," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 227-247, May.
    11. Lal, Rajiv & Matutes, Carmen, 1994. "Retail Pricing and Advertising Strategies," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(3), pages 345-370, July.
    12. Ran Spiegler, 2006. "The Market for Quacks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 1113-1131.
    13. Sumit Agarwal & Gene Amromin & Itzhak Ben-David & Souphala Chomsisengphet & Douglas D. Evanoff, 2009. "Do financial counseling mandates improve mortgage choice and performance? Evidence from a legislative experiment," Working Paper Series WP-09-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    14. ,, 2006. "Competition over agents with boundedly rational expectations," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(2), pages 207-231, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mark Armstrong & John Vickers, 2012. "Consumer Protection and Contingent Charges," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(2), pages 477-493, June.
    2. Paul Heidhues & Botond Kőszegi & Takeshi Murooka, 2017. "Inferior Products and Profitable Deception," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 323-356.
    3. Renato Gomes & Jean Tirole, 2018. "Missed Sales and the Pricing of Ancillary Goods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 2097-2169.
    4. Tirole, Jean & Gomes, Renato & Bourguignon, Hélène, 2014. "Shrouded Transaction Costs," CEPR Discussion Papers 10171, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. repec:oup:restud:v:84:y::i:1:p:323-356. is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Vikander Nick, 2019. "Sellouts, Beliefs, and Bandwagon Behavior," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(1), pages 1-21, January.
    7. Wenzel, Tobias, 2014. "Consumer myopia, competition and the incentives to unshroud add-on information," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 89-96.
    8. Bourguignon, Hélène & Gomes, Renato & Tirole, Jean, 2019. "Shrouded transaction costs: must-take cards, discounts and surcharges," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 99-144.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kosfeld, Michael & Schüwer, Ulrich, 2016. "Pricing in retail financial markets and the fallacies of consumer education," SAFE Working Paper Series 47, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2016.
    2. Yiquan Gu & Tobias Wenzel, 2014. "Strategic Obfuscation and Consumer Protection Policy," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 632-660, December.
    3. Chioveanu, Ioana & Zhou, Jidong, 2009. "Price Competition and Consumer Confusion," MPRA Paper 17340, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Michael Grubb, 2015. "Failing to Choose the Best Price: Theory, Evidence, and Policy," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 47(3), pages 303-340, November.
    5. Ioana Chioveanu & Jidong Zhou, 2013. "Price Competition with Consumer Confusion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(11), pages 2450-2469, November.
    6. Hans‐Theo Normann & Tobias Wenzel, 2019. "Shrouding Add‐On Information: An Experimental Study," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(4), pages 1705-1727, October.
    7. Mark Armstrong, 2015. "Search and Ripoff Externalities," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 47(3), pages 273-302, November.
    8. Michele Piccione & Ran Spiegler, 2012. "Price Competition Under Limited Comparability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 97-135.
    9. Kenan Kalaycı & Marta Serra-Garcia, 2016. "Complexity and biases," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(1), pages 31-50, March.
    10. Antonio Rosato, 2016. "Selling substitute goods to loss-averse consumers: limited availability, bargains, and rip-offs," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(3), pages 709-733, August.
    11. Vickers, John, 2021. "Competition for imperfect consumers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Yiquan Gu & Tobias Wenzel, 2012. "Strategic Obfuscation and Consumer Protection Policy in Financial Markets: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2012-14, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    13. Ran Spiegler, 2014. "Competitive Framing," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 35-58, August.
    14. Yiquan Gu & Tobias Wenzel, 2017. "Consumer confusion, obfuscation and price regulation," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 64(2), pages 169-190, May.
    15. Tobias Gamp & Daniel Kraehmer, 2018. "Deception and Competition in Search Markets," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_014_2018, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    16. Renato Gomes & Jean Tirole, 2018. "Missed Sales and the Pricing of Ancillary Goods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 2097-2169.
    17. Gu, Yiquan & Wenzel, Tobias, 2020. "Curbing obfuscation: Empower consumers or regulate firms?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    18. Wenzel, Tobias & Normann, Hans-Theo, 2015. "Shrouding add-on information: an experimental study," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113149, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Jidong Zhou, 2011. "Reference Dependence and Market Competition," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 1073-1097, December.
    20. Schumacher, Heiner, 2014. "Incentives through consumer learning about tastes," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 170-177.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bounded rationality; Competition; Consumer protection; Regulation; Welfare;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • L50 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8636. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.