IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/randje/v46y2015i3p611-624.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How limiting deceptive practices harms consumers

Author

Listed:
  • Salvatore Piccolo
  • Piero Tedeschi
  • Giovanni Ursino

Abstract

type="main"> There are two competing sellers of an experience good, one offers high quality, one low. The low-quality seller can engage in deceptive advertising, potentially fooling a buyer into thinking the product is better than it is. Although deceptive advertising might seem to harm the buyer, we show that he could be better off when the low-quality seller can engage in deceptive advertising than not. We characterize the optimal deterrence rule that a regulatory agency seeking to punish deceptive practices should adopt. We show that greater protection against deceptive practices does not necessarily improve the buyer welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Salvatore Piccolo & Piero Tedeschi & Giovanni Ursino, 2015. "How limiting deceptive practices harms consumers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(3), pages 611-624, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:randje:v:46:y:2015:i:3:p:611-624
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/1756-2171.12099
    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 below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Corts, Kenneth S., 2014. "The social value of information on product quality," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 140-143.
    2. Salop, Steven C & Scheffman, David T, 1983. "Raising Rivals' Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(2), pages 267-271, May.
    3. Francesca Barigozzi & Paolo G. Garella & Martin Peitz, 2009. "With a Little Help from My Enemy: Comparative Advertising as a Signal of Quality," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 1071-1094, December.
    4. Salvatore Piccolo & Piero Tedeschi & Giovanni Ursino, 2018. "Deceptive Advertising with Rational Buyers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1291-1310, March.
    5. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell, 2012. "Mandatory Versus Voluntary Disclosure of Product Risks," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(2), pages 360-379.
    6. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1986. "Price and Advertising Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 796-821, August.
    7. Keisuke Hattori & Keisaku Higashida, 2012. "Misleading advertising in duopoly," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(3), pages 1154-1187, August.
    8. Kenneth S. Corts, 2013. "Prohibitions on False and Unsubstantiated Claims: Inducing the Acquisition and Revelation of Information through Competition Policy," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(2), pages 453-486.
    9. Bagwell, Kyle & Riordan, Michael H, 1991. "High and Declining Prices Signal Product Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 224-239, March.
    10. Nelson, Philip, 1974. "Advertising as Information," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(4), pages 729-754, July/Aug..
    11. Steven Matthews & Andrew Postlewaite, 1985. "Quality Testing and Disclosure," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(3), pages 328-340, Autumn.
    12. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2008. "Communicating quality: a unified model of disclosure and signalling," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 973-989, December.
    13. Bagwell, Kyle, 2007. "The Economic Analysis of Advertising," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 28, pages 1701-1844, Elsevier.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Salvatore Piccolo & Piero Tedeschi & Giovanni Ursino, 2018. "Deceptive Advertising with Rational Buyers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1291-1310, March.
    2. Kemal Kıvanç Aköz & Cemal Eren Arbatli & Levent Celik, 2020. "Manipulation Through Biased Product Reviews," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(4), pages 591-639, December.
    3. Andrew Rhodes & Chris M. Wilson, 2018. "False advertising," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 49(2), pages 348-369, June.
    4. Kenneth S. Corts, 2013. "Prohibitions on False and Unsubstantiated Claims: Inducing the Acquisition and Revelation of Information through Competition Policy," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(2), pages 453-486.
    5. Hattori, Keisuke & Higashida, Keisaku, 2014. "Misleading advertising and minimum quality standards," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-14.
    6. Emons, Winand & Fluet, Claude, 2012. "Non-comparative versus comparative advertising of quality," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 352-360.
    7. Simone Ghislandi & Michael Kuhn, 2016. "Asymmetric information in the regulation of the access to markets," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp219, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    8. Simon P. Anderson & Régis Renault, 2006. "Advertising Content," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 93-113, March.
    9. Serafin Grundl & You Suk Kim, 2019. "Consumer mistakes and advertising: The case of mortgage refinancing," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 161-213, June.
    10. Simon P. Anderson & Régis Renault, 2013. "The Advertising Mix for a Search Good," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 69-83, April.
    11. Aldo Pignataro, 2019. "The effects of loss aversion on deceptive advertising policies," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 87(4), pages 451-472, November.
    12. Tingting Nian & Arun Sundararajan, 2022. "Social Media Marketing, Quality Signaling, and the Goldilocks Principle," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(2), pages 540-556, June.
    13. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12407 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Brekke Kjell Arne & Rege Mari, 2007. "Advertising as a Distortion of Social Learning," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-18, October.
    15. Jeong-Yoo Kim, 2017. "Pricing an Experience Composite Good as Coordinated Signals," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(2), pages 163-182, March.
    16. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, September.
    17. Andrew F. Daughety & Jennifer F. Reinganum, 2008. "Communicating quality: a unified model of disclosure and signalling," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 973-989, December.
    18. Corts, Kenneth S., 2014. "The social value of information on product quality," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 140-143.
    19. Baumann, Florian & Rasch, Alexander, 2017. "Injunctions against false advertising," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168142, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    20. Juan Feng & Jinhong Xie, 2012. "Research Note ---Performance-Based Advertising: Advertising as Signals of Product Quality," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(3-part-2), pages 1030-1041, September.
    21. Leonard J. Mirman & Marc Santugini, 2019. "The Informational Role of Prices," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(2), pages 606-629, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies

    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:bla:randje:v:46:y:2015:i:3:p:611-624. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/randdus.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.