This chapter proposes an analysis of the role of advertising in the transmission of information in markets. It also describes how the economic analysis of informative advertising provides a satisfactory account of advertising practices and discusses the extent to which resorting to alternative...

The prevalence of misinformation has spurred various interested parties--regulators, the media, and competing firms--to debunk false claims in the marketplace. This paper studies whether such debunking messages provided by these parties can impact consumer purchase behavior. If so, does...

There is a substantial literature in medical journals examining the marketing and promotional efforts of pharmaceutical firms. This literature is generally critical of those efforts, focusing on the negative aspects of promotion. Although the literature is expressed in empirical and scientific...

With the Hatch-Waxman Act of 1984, the FDA included an unchallengeable exclusivity period for newly approved drugs, independent of patents. This potentially generates an incentive for firms to strategically delay the introduction of new versions (reformulations) of drugs until just before patent...

We study the problem a diagnostic expert (e.g., a physician) faces when offering a diagnosis to a client (e.g., a patient) that may be based only on her own diagnostic ability or supplemented by a diagnostic test — conventional and artificial intelligence (AI) tools alike — revealing the...

If producers have more information than consumers about goods' attributes, then they may use non-price (rather than price) adjustment mechanisms and, consequently, the market may reach a new equilibrium even if prices don't change. We study a situation where producers adjust the quantity per...

The impact of a reform that increased consumer information on brand name and generic pharmaceutical prices is analyzed both theoretically and empirically. The theoretical results show that an increase in information likely reduces the price of brand name pharmaceuticals, while the results...

We study how a consumer optimally allocates attention to favorable and unfavorable information related to a product before purchasing it, when information processing is costly. We find that attention allocation depends on the consumer's prior belief about whether the product matches her needs or...