In an adverse selection context, this article explores the relative usefulness of price information over quantity information. The main finding is that price monitoring can induce a sales level that is greater than the full-information sales level. This imposes additional selling costs on the agent and reduces that agent's rents. The analysis identifies sufficient conditions for the principal to prefer price monitoring over quantity monitoring. Business-format franchises exhibit many of the features of the setting analyzed here, and the article's findings have implications for designing information systems in that sector of the economy.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Article provided by University of Chicago Press in its journal Journal of Business.
Volume (Year): 79 (2006) Issue (Month): 5 (September) Pages: 2361-2380 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF