This paper provides evidence of the incidence and variety of low-price guarantees (promises to match or beat a rival's price) using data obtained from newspaper advertisements in thirty-seven metropolitan areas in the United States. In all, we have a total of five-hundred and fifteen low-price...

We consider the optimal pricing and referral strategy of a monopoly that uses a simple consumer communication network (a chain) to spread product information. The first-best policy with fully discriminatory position-based referral fees involves standard monopoly pricing and referral fees that...

This paper compares equilibrium outcomes in search markets with and without referrals. Although consumers would benefit from honest referrals, it is not at all clear whether firms would unilaterally provide information about competing offers since such information could encourage a consumer to...

In many industries, firms reward their customers for making referrals. We analyze the optimal policy mix of price, advertising intensity, and a referral fee for monopoly when buyers choose to what extent to refer other consumers to the firm. We find that the firm advertises less under referrals,...

Jun and Kim (2008) consider the optimal pricing and referral strategy of a monopoly that uses a consumer communication network to spread product information. They show that for any finite referral chain, the optimal policy involves a referral fee that provides strictly positive referral...