We discuss the impact of consumer protection policies on consumer incentives to become informed of the best deals available in the market. In a market with costly consumer search, we find that imposing a cap on suppliers' prices reduces the incentive to engage in search, with the result that...

A common sales tactic is for a seller to encourage a potential customer to make her purchase decision quickly, before she can investigate rival deals in the market.  We consider a market with sequential consumer search in which firms can achieve this either by making an exploding offer (which...

A seller wishes to prevent the discovery of rival offers by its prospective customers.  We study sales techniques which serve this purpose by making it harder for a customer to return to buy later after a search for alternatives.  These include making an exploding offer, offering a "buy-now"...

A seller wishes to prevent the discovery of rival offers by its prospective customers. We study sales techniques which serve this purpose by making it harder for a customer to return to buy later after a search for alternatives. These include making an exploding offer, offering a "buy-now"...

This paper studies sales techniques which discourage consumer search by making it harder or more expensive to return to buy after a search for alternatives. It is unilaterally profitable for a seller to deter search under mild conditions, but sellers can suffer when all do so. When a seller...

A common sales tactic is for a seller to encourage a potential customer to make her purchase decision quickly. We consider a market with sequential consumer search in which firms often encourage first-time visitors to buy immediately, either by making an "exploding offer" (which permits no...

We consider a market with sequential consumer search in which firms can distinguish potential customers visiting for the first time from returning visitors. We show that firms often have an incentive to make it costly for its visitors to return after investigating rivals, either by making an...

We discuss the impact of consumer protection policies on consumers' incentives to become informed of the best deals available in the market. In a market with costly information acquisition, we find that imposing a cap on suppliers' prices reduces the incentive to become informed of market...

Open banking facilitates data sharing consented by customers who generate the data, with a regulatory goal of promoting competition between traditional banks and challenger fintech entrants. We study lending market competition when sharing banks' customer data enables better borrower screening...