We consider a market in which some consumers are fully informed about the quality of a product sold by different firms, while other consumers are uninformed. We examine the effects on the prices and qualities offered in the market of increasing the fraction of informed consumers. In equilibrium,...

We analyze the effect of consumer information on firm pricing in a model where consumers search for prices and matches with products. We consider two types of consumers. Uninformed consumers do not know in advance their match values with firms, whereas informed consumers do. Prices are lower the...

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...

I analyze a model of directed search in which a consumer inspects a finite number of products sharing attributes with each others. The consumer discovers her valuation for the attributes of the inspected products and adapts her search strategy based on what she has learned. The consumer...

Firms sometimes nurture long lines, rather than raising prices to eliminate waiting times. We justify this practice by considering the informational role of a queue in a setting in which a firm can also adjust its price to signal its quality to uninformed consumers. When the proportion of...

This paper studies the welfare effects of information in a sequential consumer search environment. Consumers search in the market and observe a noisy signal about the match value upon being matched with a firm, based on which they make their purchasing decisions. We construct the class of...

The paper deals with the competitive effects of price guarantees in a spatial duopoly where consumers can search for lower prices but have to incur hassle costs if they want to claim a price guarantee. It is shown that symmetric equilibria with and without price guarantees exist but price...

The paper deals with the competitive effects of price guarantees in a spatial duopoly where consumers can search for lower prices but have to incur hassle costs if they want to claim a price guarantee. It is shown that symmetric equilibria with and without price guarantees exist but price...

To make sense of mixed empirical evidence on the pricing rigidity of cartels, this paper studies how colluding firms price their goods in a model where firms have private marginal costs and sell to consumers with search costs. In this model, firms repeatedly interact in selling a homogeneous...