Attraction versus Persuasion: Information Provision in Search Markets

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Au, Pak Hung; Whitmeyer, Mark
• 署名单位: Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/720984
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: model; disclosure

摘要

We consider a model of oligopolistic competition in a market with search frictions, in which competing firms with products of unknown quality advertise how much information a consumer's visit will glean. In the unique symmetric equilibrium of this game, the countervailing incentives of attraction and persuasion yield a payoff function for each firm that is linear in the firm's realized effective value. If the expected quality of the products is sufficiently high (or competition is sufficiently fierce), this corresponds to full information: firms provide the first-best level of information. If not, this corresponds to information dispersion: firms randomize over signals.