In this paper, I study markets where consumers are heterogeneous with respect to both their concerns for the quality of goods and the image associated with them. Consumers with a taste for quality lend a positive image to the product of their choice and thereby increase the product's value to...

Consumption patterns can be indicative of how a consumer wants to be perceived by others. In this paper, I study markets where consumers are heterogeneous with respect to both their concerns for the quality of goods and the image associated with buying them. Consumers with a taste for quality...

This paper analyzes optimal product lines when consumers differ both in their taste for quality and in their desire for social image. The market outcome features partial pooling and product differentiation that is not driven by heterogeneous valuations for quality but by image concerns. A...

This article studies the use of different distribution channels as an instrument of price discrimination in credence goods markets. In credence goods markets, where consumers do not know which quality of the good or service they need, price discrimination proceeds along the dimension of quality...

This article studies the use of different distribution channels as an instrument of price discrimination in credence goods markets. In credence goods markets, where consumers do not know which quality of the good or service they need, price discrimination proceeds along the dimension of quality...

With credence goods consumers cannot judge the quality they receive compared to the quality they need. The needed quality can only be observed by an expert seller who may exploit the information asymmetry by cheating. In recent years various contributions have analyzed the credence goods problem...

Most of us need the services of an expert when our apartment's heating or our washing machine breaks down, or when our car starts to make strange noises. And for most of us commissioning an expert to solve the problem causes concern. This concern does not disappear even after repair and payment...

We consider consumer entry in the canonical monopolistic nonlinear pricing model ( Mussa and Rosen 1978) wherein consumers learn their preference “types” after incurring privately known entry costs. We show that by taking into account consumer entry, the nature of optimal nonlinear pricing...