IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v14y2022i3p591-621.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Experience Goods and Consumer Search

Author

Listed:
  • Yongmin Chen
  • Zhuozheng Li
  • Tianle Zhang

Abstract

We introduce a search model where products differ in horizontal attributes and unobserved quality ("experience goods"), and firms can establish quality reputation. We show that the inability of consumers to observe quality before purchase significantly changes how search frictions affect market performance. In equilibrium, higher search costs reduce match values and increase price but can boost firms' investment in product quality. Under plausible conditions, both consumer and total welfare initially increase in search cost, whereas both would monotonically decrease if quality were observable from search. We apply the analysis to online markets, where low search costs coexist with low-quality products.

Suggested Citation

  • Yongmin Chen & Zhuozheng Li & Tianle Zhang, 2022. "Experience Goods and Consumer Search," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 591-621, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:591-621
    DOI: 10.1257/mic.20200070
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20200070
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20200070.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/mic.20200070?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Kim, Da Yeon & Kim, Sang Yong, 2023. "Investigating the effect of customer-generated content on performance in online platform-based experience goods market," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Yongmin Chen, 2024. "Search and Competition Under Product Quality Uncertainty," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 633-661, June.
    3. Cao, Yiran & Chen, Yongmin & Ding, Yucheng & Zhang, Tianle, 2022. "Search and competition in expert markets," MPRA Paper 114170, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

    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:aea:aejmic:v:14:y:2022:i:3:p:591-621. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.