We investigate the effect of an EU-wide consumer protection regulation on consumer trust as well as consumer behavior. The Unfair Commercial Practice Directive (UCPD) was implemented by EU member states between 2007 and 2010. We utilize data from the Special and Flash Eurobarometer for the years...

We derive equilibrium incentives to use comparative advertising that pushes up own brand perception and pulls down the brand image of targeted rivals. Data on content and spending for all TV advertisements in OTC analgesics enable us to construct matrices of dollar rival targeting and estimate...

Consider a two-product firm that decides on the quality of each product. Product quality is unknown to consumers. If the firm sells both products under the same brand name, consumers adjust their beliefs about quality subject to the performance of both products. We show that if the probability...

We provide a novel intuition for the observation that many brand manufacturers have restricted their retailers' ability to resell brand products online. Our approach builds on models of salience according to which price disparities across distribution channels guide a consumer’s attention...

Institutions are important for proper economic performance, but are replaceable by trust or other social norms. We show that when proper institutions and trust are missing, integrity of the individuals can replace them. We construct a model of a transactions-based economy with contracts...

Social preference research has fundamentally changed the way economists think about many important economic and social phenomena. However, the empirical foundation of social preferences is largely based on laboratory experiments with self-selected students as participants. This is potentially...