Two firms produce a good with a horizontal and a vertical characteristic called quality. The difference in the … unobservable quality levels determines how the firms share the market. We consider two scenarios: In the first one, firms disclose … quality; in the second one, they send costly signals thereof. Under non-comparative advertising a firm advertises its own …

Firms normally disclose quality information to consumers using two alternative formats: either directly to consumers or … indirectly through downstream retailers. This study investigates optimal disclosure strategies/formats in a channel setting with … bilateral monopolies. It shows that retail disclosure leads to more equilibrium information revelation. This is because the …

such communication is that it takes on one of two alternative forms when quality is exogenous: 1) disclosure of quality …Firms communicate product quality attributes to consumers through a variety of channels, such as pricing, advertising … through a credible direct claim; 2) signaling of quality via producer actions that influence buyersÕ beliefs about quality. In …

lower full marginal cost. We characterize the firm�s equilibrium disclosure and pricing behavior, and compare that … behavior and the associated welfare to what would occur under a regime of mandatory disclosure. We derive a range of disclosure … costs that would induce a high-safety firm to choose disclosure over signaling. When the firm�s full marginal cost is …

Marketers disclose quality information directly to potential consumers using a variety of communication channels. This … study investigates how competition may influence duopoly firms' incentive to voluntarily reveal quality information. We show … that firms in competitive markets reveal less information than a monopoly firm. In addition, sequential disclosure leads to …

important ramifications for the use and quality of paid childcare. Even if one is concerned primarily with the quantity aspect …, the quality dimension cannot be ignored. This paper provides an exposition of the potential biases in estimates of price … elasticities with respect to quantity that do not allow for quality variation or for the possibility of non-linear pricing …

This papers studies the effects on service quality and consumer surplus of a minimum price which is fixed by a … maximize consumer surplus only if consumers demand the highest possible average quality. If consumers demand services of lesser … quality, the association?s price will be too high if measured by consumer surplus. Moreover we show that a de-regulated market …