We study the endogenous dynamics of reputations in a system consisting of firms with long horizons that provide goods or services with varying levels of quality, and large numbers of customers who assign to them reputations on the basis of the quality levels that they experience when interacting...

The mere fact that consumers are targeted by advertisements can affect their inference about the expected utility of a product. We build a micro-model where multiple firms compete through targeted advertising. Consumers make inferences from targeted advertising about their potential match values...

We study a model of task completion with the opportunity to learn about own self-control problems over time. While the agent is initially uncertain about her future self-control, in each period she can choose to learn about it by paying a non-negative learning cost and spending one period. If...

This chapter examines how the original tenets of the affect-as-information hypothesis can be extended to explain a wide range of judgment phenomena, especially with respect to consumer decision making. To this end, research within social psychology as well as research from other fields such as...

We develop and estimate a model of consumer search with spatial learning. Consumers make inferences from previously searched objects to unsearched objects that are nearby in attribute space, generating path dependence in search sequences. The estimated model rationalizes patterns in data on...

Economics has long studied how consumers respond to the disclosure of information about firms. We study a case in which the disclosed information is unrelated to the product or firm leadership, but which could still potentially affect consumer patronage through the mechanism of repugnance, as...

Across four studies, including one involving an actual monetary decision, the authors demonstrate that forming a product consideration set by excluding versus including alternatives induces consumers to place more weight on ethical attributes, such as company labor practices and animal testing....

In recent years, concerns about misinformation in the media have skyrocketed. President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that various news outlets are disseminating "fake news" for political purposes. But when the information contained in mainstream media news reports provides no clear clues...

Panel conditioning occurs when participation in previous survey rounds affects how respondents answer questions in later rounds. I document panel conditioning effects in reported inflation expectations and other responses in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Survey of Consumer Expectations....

Widespread misconceptions can be critical, especially in times of crisis. Through a field experiment, we study how to address such wrong or inaccurate beliefs using messages delivered to individual citizens using mobile phones. We focus on misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic in a...