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Misleading advertising in duopoly

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  • Keisuke Hattori
  • Keisaku Higashida

Abstract

This paper builds a model of strategic misleading advertising in duopolistic markets with horizontal product differentiation and advertising externality between firms. We investigate the effects of regulating misinformation on market competition, behaviour of firms, and social welfare. We show that the degree of advertising externality and the magnitude of advertising costs are crucial for determining the welfare effects of several regulations, including prohibiting misleading advertising, educating consumers, taxing production, and taxing misleading advertising. We extend the model by introducing heterogeneous consumers, heterogeneous production costs between firms, and the degree of advertising informativeness. Our results have important policy implications for the debate regarding regulation of advertising, especially direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

Suggested Citation

  • Keisuke Hattori & Keisaku Higashida, 2012. "Misleading advertising in duopoly," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(3), pages 1154-1187, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cje:issued:v:45:y:2012:i:3:p:1154-1187
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5982.2012.01730.x
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    1. Why American politicians lie
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2011-04-08 19:20:00

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    Cited by:

    1. Daniel F. Garrett, 2019. "Fake Sales: A Dynamic Pricing Perspective," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 70(3), pages 375-382, September.
    2. 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.
    3. Salvatore Piccolo & Piero Tedeschi & Giovanni Ursino, 2018. "Deceptive Advertising with Rational Buyers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1291-1310, March.
    4. Matsumura, Toshihiro & Sunada, Takeaki, 2013. "Advertising competition in a mixed oligopoly," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 183-185.
    5. Mikhail Drugov & Marta Troya‐Martinez, 2019. "Vague lies and lax standards of proof: On the law and economics of advice," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 298-315, April.
    6. Hattori, Keisuke & Higashida, Keisaku, 2014. "Misleading advertising and minimum quality standards," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-14.
    7. 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.
    8. Andrew Rhodes & Chris M. Wilson, 2018. "False advertising," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 49(2), pages 348-369, June.
    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. Lambertini, Luca & Pignataro, Giuseppe & Tampieri, Alessandro, 2020. "The effects of environmental quality misperception on investments and regulation," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    11. Keisuke Hattori & Keisaku Higashida, 2015. "Who Benefits from Misleading Advertising?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 82(328), pages 613-643, October.
    12. Malcolm Brady, 2021. "A Game-Theoretic Model of Strategic Interaction Using Advertising: Simulating the Evolution of the Cournot Nash Equilibrium under Different Competitive Scenarios," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-16, November.
    13. Keisuke Hattori & Keisaku Higashida, 2015. "Should non-genuine products be expelled from markets?," Discussion Paper Series 126, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Mar 2015.
    14. Soham Baksi & Pinaki Bose & Di Xiang, 2017. "Credence Goods, Misleading Labels, and Quality Differentiation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(2), pages 377-396, October.
    15. Keisuke Hattori & Keisaku Higashida, 2011. "When Government Misleads US: Sending Misinformation as Protectionist Devices," Discussion Paper Series 75, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Aug 2011.
    16. Aldo Pignataro, 2019. "The effects of loss aversion on deceptive advertising policies," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 87(4), pages 451-472, November.
    17. Sharma, Ajay, 2019. "Misleading Advertising in Mixed Markets: Consumer-orientation and welfare outcomes," MPRA Paper 96189, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Florian Baumann & Alexander Rasch, 2020. "Exposing false advertising," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 1211-1245, August.
    19. Keisuke Hattori & Keisaku Higashida, 2023. "Who should be regulated: Genuine producers or third parties?," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 249-286, April.
    20. Rhodes, Andrew, 2023. "A Survey on Drip Pricing and Other False Advertising," TSE Working Papers 23-1434, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    21. 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.
    22. Juan Pedro Aznar-Alarcón & Oriol Anguera-Torrell, 2023. "Fake Reviews in Online Platforms and the Effort to Fight Them," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 11(2), pages 235-245, August.
    23. Serafin J. Grundl & You Suk Kim, 2017. "Consumer Mistakes and Advertising : The Case of Mortgage Refinancing," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-067, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    24. Gupta, Aastha, 2023. "Deceptive advertising, regulation and naive consumers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • M37 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Advertising

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