We conduct a laboratory experiment that tests two fundamental predictions unique to salience theory. If an agent purchases one of two vertically differentiated products, salience theory makes the following two distinct predictions. First, it hypothesizes that a higher expected price level for...

Whereas exchange asymmetries for goods are well known, we provide a first incentivized test of exchange asymmetries for bads (i.e., items yielding a negative utility). On the one hand, prospect theory predicts an endowment effect for goods and bads, on the other hand, attention-based theories...

Motivated by current topics in health economics, we apply the theory of salience to consumer policy. If a government intends to stifle healthier diets without harming consumers by raising taxes, it could initiate information campaigns which focus consumers' attention either on the healthiness of...

Focusing theory hypothesizes a bias toward concentration according to which consumers prefer goods with one outstanding feature over those with several smaller sized upsides. In contrast to models of present-biased behavior, focusing theory prescribes also future-biased behavior if an option's...

We analyze the welfare effects of structural remedies on merger activity in a Cournot oligopoly if the antitrust agency applies a consumer surplus standard. We derive conditions such that otherwise price-increasing mergers become externality-free by the use of remedial divestitures. In this...

In contradiction to expected utility theory, various studies find that splitting events or attributes into subevents and subattributes can reverse a decision maker's choices. Most notably, these effects can induce first-order stochastic dominated choices. These violations of first-order...

Katz (1987), DeGraba (1990), and Yoshida (2000) have formulated theories that price discrimination bans in intermediary goods markets tend to have positive effects on allocative, dynamic and productive efficiency, respectively. We show that none of these results is robust vis-à-vis endogenous...

We re-examine the Nash bargaining solution when an upstream and a downstream firm bargain over a linear input price. We show that the profit sharing rule is given by a simple and instructive formula which depends on the parties' disagreement payoffs, the profit weights in the Nash-product and...

We re-examine the view that a ban on price discrimination in input markets is particularly desirable in the presence of buyer power. This argument crucially depends on an inverse relationship between downstream firms' profits and the uniform input price. Assuming different input efficiencies...

We analyze the effects of structural remedies on merger activity in a Cournot oligopoly when the antitrust agency applies a consumer surplus standard. Remedies increase the scope for pro table and acceptable mergers, while divestitures to an entrant rm are most effective in this regard. Remedial...