This article introduces status as reflecting an agent's claim to recognition in her work. This is a scarce resource: increasing an agent's status requires that another agent's status be decreased. Higher-status agents are more willing to exert effort in exchange for money; better-paid agents...

Improved consumer information about horizontal aspects of products of similar quality leads to better consumer matching but also to higher prices, so consumer surplus can go up or down, while profits rise. With enough quality asymmetry, though, the higher-quality (and hence larger) firm's price...