We study how consumer search affects pricing in markets with incumbents and entrants using panel data on German electricity retail markets. Consumers observe the baseline price of the incumbent and decide whether or not to search. Incumbent providers can price discriminate between searching and...

The Combinatorial Clock Auction (CCA) has frequently been used in recent spectrum auctions. It combines a dynamic clock phase and a one-off supplementary round. The winning allocation and the corresponding prices are determined by the VCG rules. These rules should encourage truthful bidding,...

Consumers can acquire information through their own search efforts or through their social network. Information diffusion via word-of-mouth communication leads to some consumers free-riding on their 'friends' and less information acquisition via active search. Free-riding also has an important...

We modify the paper of Stahl (1989) on sequential consumer search in an oligopoly context by relaxing the assumption that consumers obtain the first price quotation for free. When all price quotations are costly to obtain, a new equilibrium arises where consumers randomize between not searching...

This paper presents an empirical examination of oligopoly pricing and consumer search. The theoretical model allows for sequential and non-sequential search and, using the theoretical restrictions firm and consumer behavior impose on the data, we study the empirical validity of the models. Two...

There is by now a large literature arguing that auctions with a variety of after-market interactions may not yield an efficient allocation of the objects for sale, especially when the bidders impose strong negative externalities upon each other. This paper argues that these inefficiencies can be...

This paper is the first to examine the effect of minimum price guaranteesin a sequential search model. Minimum price guarantees are notadvertised and only known to consumers when they come to the shop.We show that in such an environment, minimum price guarantees increasethe value of buying the...

We analyze the effects of mergers in first-price sealed-bid auctions on bidders' equilibrium bidding functions and on revenue. We also study the incentives of bidders to merge given the private information they have. We develop two models, depending on how after-merger valuations are created. In...

In recent years, Combinatorial Clock Auctions (CCAs) have been used around the world to allocate frequency spectrum for mobile telecom licenses. CCAs are claimed to significantly reduce the scope for gaming or strategic bidding. In this paper, we show, however, that CCAs significantly enhance...

Firms can communicate private information about product quality through a combination of pricing and disclosure where disclosure may be deliberately false. We examine the effect of regulation that penalizes false disclosure by firms in a competitive setting. The cost of false disclosure...