Rules of consumer protection or fair competition can be publicly or privately enforced. We consider the possibility of false advertising by a firm in duopolistic competition where consumers can be distinguished according to whether or not they form rational beliefs about the trustworthiness of...

Rules of consumer protection or fair competition can be publicly or privately enforced. We consider the possibility of false advertising by a firm in duopolistic competition where consumers can be distinguished according to whether or not they form rational beliefs about the trustworthiness of...

This paper revisits the relationship between transparency on the consumer side and product variety as analyzed in Schultz (2009). We identify two welfare effects of transparency. More transparency decreases price-cost margins which is beneficial forwelfare. On the other hand, more transparency...

This paper studies the relationship between transparency on the consumer side and productivity of firms. We show that more transparent markets are characterized by higher average productivity as firms with low productivity abstain from entering these markets. -- Market Transparency ; Firm...

It is increasingly observable that competitors in different industries share customer data, which can be used for targeted pricing. We propose a modified Hotelling model with two-dimensional consumer heterogeneity to analyze the incentives for such sharing and its ensuing welfare effects. We...

We analyze how consumer myopia influences investment incentives into a technology that enables firms to track consumers' purchases and make targeted offers based on their preferences. In a two-period Hotelling setup firms may invest in customer-tracking technology. If a firm acquires the...

We investigate how firms' incentives to acquire customer data for targeted offers depend on its quality. A two-dimensional Hotelling model is proposed where consumers are heterogeneous both with respect to their locations and transportation cost parameters (flexibility). Firms have perfect data...

We focus on four important features of mobile targeting. First, consumers' real-time locations are known to sellers. Second, location is not the only factor determining how responsive consumers are to discounts. Other factors such as age, income and occupation play a role, which are imperfectly...