There is widespread evidence that some firms use false advertising to overstate the value of their products. Using a model in which a policymaker is able to punish such false claims, we characterize a natural equilibrium in which false advertising actively influences rational buyers. We analyze...

This paper analyzes persuasive advertising and pricing in oligopoly if firms sell differentiated products and consumers have heterogeneous social attitudes towards the consumption by others. Deriving product demand from primitives, we show that the demand-enhancing effect of persuasive...

This paper analyzes persuasive advertising and pricing in oligopoly if firms sell differentiated products and consumers have heterogeneous social attitudes towards the consumption by others. Deriving product demand from primitives, we show that the demand-enhancing effect of persuasive...

There is widespread evidence that some firms use false advertising to overstate the value of their products. We consider a model in which a policymaker is able to punish such false claims. We characterize an equilibrium where false advertising actively influences rational buyers, and analyze the...

We present a diagrammatic and step-by-step analysis of price signaling quality. Because quality is a continuum on the real positive line, out-of-equilibrium beliefs need not be specified, i.e., every positive price is a positive outcome in equilibrium. We first study the behavior of the monopoly...

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...

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 paper studies optimal nonlinear pricing for a monopolist when consumers' preferences exhibit temptation and self-control as in Gul and Pesendorfer (2001). Consumers are subject to temptation inside the store but exercise self-control, and those foreseeing large self-control costs do not...

This article considers a durable goods monopolist's choice of price and durability in a setting where durability choice controls the speed with which quality deteriorates. The article derives three main results. First, the price at which old units trade on the secondhand market limits what the...

We present a model of market hyper-segmentation, where a monopolist acquires within a short time all information about the preferences of consumers who purchase its vertically differentiated products within a given period. The firrm offers a new price/quality schedule after each commitment...