IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2506.06319.html

Limits of Disclosure in Search Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Raphael Boleslavsky
  • Silvana Krasteva

Abstract

This paper examines competitive information disclosure in search markets with a mix of savvy consumers, who search costlessly, and inexperienced consumers, who face positive search costs. Savvy consumers incentivize truthful disclosure; inexperienced consumers, concealment. With both types, equilibrium features partial disclosure, which persists despite intense competition: in large markets, firms always conceal low valuations. Inexperienced consumers may search actively, but only in small markets. While savvy consumers benefit from increased competition, inexperienced consumers may be harmed. Changes in search costs have non-monotone effects: when costs are low, sufficient reductions increase informativeness and welfare; when costs are high, the opposite.

Suggested Citation

  • Raphael Boleslavsky & Silvana Krasteva, 2025. "Limits of Disclosure in Search Markets," Papers 2506.06319, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2025.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2506.06319
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.06319
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mustafa Dogan & Ju Hu, 2022. "Consumer search and optimal information," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 53(2), pages 386-403, June.
    2. Au, Pak Hung & Kawai, Keiichi, 2020. "Competitive information disclosure by multiple senders," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 56-78.
    3. Gentzkow, Matthew & Kamenica, Emir, 2017. "Bayesian persuasion with multiple senders and rich signal spaces," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 411-429.
    4. Che, Yeon-Koo, 1996. "Customer Return Policies for Experience Goods," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 17-24, March.
    5. Weitzman, Martin L, 1979. "Optimal Search for the Best Alternative," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(3), pages 641-654, May.
    6. Anne-Katrin Roesler & Balázs Szentes, 2017. "Buyer-Optimal Learning and Monopoly Pricing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(7), pages 2072-2080, July.
    7. Kaya, Ayça & Roy, Santanu, 2022. "Market screening with limited records," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 106-132.
    8. Lewis, Tracy R & Sappington, David E M, 1994. "Supplying Information to Facilitate Price Discrimination," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 35(2), pages 309-327, May.
    9. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2001. "Information Gatekeepers on the Internet and the Competitiveness of Homogeneous Product Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 454-474, June.
    10. Marco Ottaviani & Andrea Prat, 2001. "The Value of Public Information in Monopoly," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1673-1683, November.
    11. Dongjin Hwang & Ilwoo Hwang, 2025. "Competitive Information Disclosure with Heterogeneous Consumer Search," Papers 2504.04659, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2025.
    12. Li, Fei & Norman, Peter, 2018. "On Bayesian persuasion with multiple senders," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 66-70.
    13. Matthew Gentzkow & Emir Kamenica, 2017. "Competition in Persuasion," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 300-322.
    14. Maxim Ivanov, 2013. "Information revelation in competitive markets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(1), pages 337-365, January.
    15. Piotr Dworczak & Giorgio Martini, 2019. "The Simple Economics of Optimal Persuasion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(5), pages 1993-2048.
    16. Justin P. Johnson & David P. Myatt, 2006. "On the Simple Economics of Advertising, Marketing, and Product Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 756-784, June.
    17. Mark Whitmeyer, 2020. "Persuasion Produces the (Diamond) Paradox," Papers 2011.13900, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2021.
    18. Mark Armstrong & Jidong Zhou, 2022. "Consumer Information and the Limits to Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(2), pages 534-577, February.
    19. Darrell Duffie & Piotr Dworczak & Haoxiang Zhu, 2017. "Benchmarks in Search Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1983-2044, October.
    20. Li, Fei & Norman, Peter, 2021. "Sequential persuasion," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 16(2), May.
    21. Simon Board & Jay Lu, 2018. "Competitive Information Disclosure in Search Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 1965-2010.
    22. Juan-JosÈ Ganuza & JosÈ S. Penalva, 2010. "Signal Orderings Based on Dispersion and the Supply of Private Information in Auctions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 1007-1030, May.
    23. Gul, Faruk & Sonnenschein, Hugo & Wilson, Robert, 1986. "Foundations of dynamic monopoly and the coase conjecture," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 155-190, June.
    24. Stahl, Dale O, II, 1989. "Oligopolistic Pricing with Sequential Consumer Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 700-712, September.
    25. Dirk Bergemann & Benjamin Brooks & Stephen Morris, 2015. "The Limits of Price Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 921-957, March.
    26. Glenn Ellison & Alexander Wolitzky, 2012. "A search cost model of obfuscation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(3), pages 417-441, September.
    27. Pak Hung Au & Mark Whitmeyer, 2023. "Attraction versus Persuasion: Information Provision in Search Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(1), pages 202-245.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lyu, Chen, 2023. "Information design for selling search goods and the effect of competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    2. Teddy Mekonnen & Bobak Pakzad-Hurson, 2024. "Competition, Persuasion, and Search," Papers 2411.11183, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2026.
    3. Dongjin Hwang & Ilwoo Hwang, 2025. "Competitive Information Disclosure with Heterogeneous Consumer Search," Papers 2504.04659, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2025.
    4. Zhou, Jidong, 2021. "Mixed bundling in oligopoly markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    5. Aköz, Kemal Kıvanç & Samsonov, Arseniy, 2025. "Information agreements," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    6. Mark Armstrong & Jidong Zhou, 2022. "Consumer Information and the Limits to Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(2), pages 534-577, February.
    7. Pak Hung Au & Mark Whitmeyer, 2018. "Attraction versus Persuasion: Information Provision in Search Markets," Papers 1802.09396, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    8. He, Wei & Li, Jiangtao, 2023. "Competitive information disclosure in random search markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 132-153.
    9. Maxim Ivanov, 2021. "Optimal monotone signals in Bayesian persuasion mechanisms," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(3), pages 955-1000, October.
    10. Wu, Wenhao & Ye, Bohan, 2023. "Competition in persuasion: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 72-89.
    11. Kemal Kivanc Akoz & Arseniy Samsonov, 2023. "Bargaining over information structures," Discussion Papers 2301, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Quantitative Social and Management Sciences.
    12. Teddy Mekonnen & Zeky Murra-Anton & Bobak Pakzad-Hurson, 2025. "Persuaded Search," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 133(10), pages 3167-3207.
      • Teddy Mekonnen & Zeky Murra-Anton & Bobak Pakzad-Hurson, 2023. "Persuaded Search," Papers 2303.13409, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    13. Pak Hung Au & Mark Whitmeyer, 2021. "Attraction Versus Persuasion," HKUST CEP Working Papers Series 202102, HKUST Center for Economic Policy.
    14. Mekonnen, Teddy, 0. "How to segment a search market: information design and directed search," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society.
    15. Simon Board & Jay Lu, 2018. "Competitive Information Disclosure in Search Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 1965-2010.
    16. Wu, Wenhao, 2023. "Sequential Bayesian persuasion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    17. Florian Hoffmann & Roman Inderst & Marco Ottaviani, 2020. "Persuasion Through Selective Disclosure: Implications for Marketing, Campaigning, and Privacy Regulation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 4958-4979, November.
    18. Au, Pak Hung & Kawai, Keiichi, 2020. "Competitive information disclosure by multiple senders," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 56-78.
    19. Charlson, G., 2021. "Rating the Competition: Seller Ratings and Intra-Platform Competition," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2106, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    20. Elliott, M. & Galeotti., A. & Koh., A. & Li, W., 2021. "Market Segmentation Through Information," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2105, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2506.06319. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.