IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/2264.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Improved Information in Search Markets

Author

Abstract

This paper studies how an improved information environment affects consumer search and firm competition. We find conditions for information improvement to have unambiguous impacts on search duration, price and consumer welfare. In many cases consumers benefit from information improvement regardless of how it affects the market price, but there are also cases where information improvement raises price significantly so that consumers suffer from it. Our model provides a unified way to consider the market implications of various types of information improvement such as search advertising, personalized recommendations, filtering, and VR shopping technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Jidong Zhou, 2020. "Improved Information in Search Markets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2264, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2264
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d22/d2264.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Choi & Anovia Yifan Dai & Kyungmin Kim, 2018. "Consumer Search and Price Competition," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(4), pages 1257-1281, July.
    2. Varian, Hal R, 1980. "A Model of Sales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 651-659, September.
    3. Heski Bar-Isaac & Guillermo Caruana & Vicente Cunat, 2012. "Search, Design, and Market Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 1140-1160, April.
    4. Yongmin Chen & Chuan He, 2011. "Paid Placement: Advertising and Search on the Internet," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(556), pages 309-328, November.
    5. Zhou, Jidong, 2009. "Prominence and Consumer Search: The Case With Multiple Prominent Firms," MPRA Paper 12554, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Mark Armstrong & John Vickers & Jidong Zhou, 2009. "Prominence and consumer search," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(2), pages 209-233, June.
    7. Asher Wolinsky, 1986. "True Monopolistic Competition as a Result of Imperfect Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 493-511.
    8. Alexandre de Cornière, 2016. "Search Advertising," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 156-188, August.
    9. Drugov, Mikhail & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2020. "How noise affects effort in tournaments," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    10. Simon P. Anderson & Regis Renault, 1999. "Pricing, Product Diversity, and Search Costs: A Bertrand-Chamberlin-Diamond Model," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(4), pages 719-735, Winter.
    11. Caplin, Andrew & Nalebuff, Barry, 1991. "Aggregation and Imperfect Competition: On the Existence of Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 25-59, January.
    12. Andrew Rhodes & Jidong Zhou, 2019. "Consumer Search and Retail Market Structure," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2607-2623, June.
    13. Jidong Zhou, 2014. "Multiproduct Search and the Joint Search Effect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2918-2939, September.
    14. Anderson, Simon P & Renault, Regis, 2000. "Consumer Information and Firm Pricing: Negative Externalities from Improved Information," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(3), pages 721-742, August.
    15. Stahl, Dale O, II, 1989. "Oligopolistic Pricing with Sequential Consumer Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 700-712, September.
    16. Chateauneuf, Alain & Cohen, Michele & Meilijson, Isaac, 2004. "Four notions of mean-preserving increase in risk, risk attitudes and applications to the rank-dependent expected utility model," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 547-571, August.
    17. Roberto Burguet & Vaiva Petrikaite, 2017. "Targeted Advertising and Costly Consumer Search," Working Papers 971, Barcelona School of Economics.
    18. Marco A. Haan & José L. Moraga‐González, 2011. "Advertising for Attention in a Consumer Search Model," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(552), pages 552-579, May.
    19. Alexandre de Corniere, 2013. "Search Advertising," Economics Series Working Papers 649, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    20. Asher Wolinsky, 1983. "Retail Trade Concentration Due to Consumers' Imperfect Information," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(1), pages 275-282, Spring.
    21. Huanxing Yang, 2013. "Targeted search and the long tail effect," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 44(4), pages 733-756, December.
    22. Burdett, Kenneth & Judd, Kenneth L, 1983. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(4), pages 955-969, July.
    23. Kfir Eliaz & Ran Spiegler, 2011. "A Simple Model of Search Engine Pricing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(556), pages 329-339, November.
    24. Tat-How Teh & Julian Wright, 2022. "Intermediation and Steering: Competition in Prices and Commissions," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 281-321, May.
    25. 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.
    26. Diamond, Peter A., 1971. "A model of price adjustment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 156-168, June.
    27. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yongmin Chen, 2024. "Search and Competition Under Product Quality Uncertainty," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 633-661, June.
    2. José L. Moraga-González & Yajie Sun, 2023. "Product Quality and Consumer Search," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 117-141, February.
    3. Liu, Lin & Wang, X. Henry, 2021. "Product differentiation and equilibrium price with partial product search," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    4. Moraga-González, José-Luis & Sun, Yajie, 2022. "Product Quality and Consumer Search," CEPR Discussion Papers 14669, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Mark Whitmeyer, 2020. "Persuasion Produces the (Diamond) Paradox," Papers 2011.13900, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2021.

    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. Yongmin Chen, 2024. "Search and Competition Under Product Quality Uncertainty," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 633-661, June.
    2. Mark Armstrong, 2017. "Ordered Consumer Search," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(5), pages 989-1024.
    3. Chen, Yongmin & Li, zhuozheng & Zhang, Tianle, 2019. "A Search Model of Experience Goods," MPRA Paper 93547, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Martin Obradovits & Philipp Plaickner, 2023. "Price-Directed Search, Product Differentiation and Competition," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 63(3), pages 317-348, November.
    5. Fershtman, Chaim & Fishman, Arthur & Zhou, Jidong, 2018. "Search and categorization," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 225-254.
    6. Chen, Yongmin & Zhang, Tianle, 2018. "Intermediaries and consumer search," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 255-277.
    7. Moraga-González, José L. & Sándor, Zsolt & Wildenbeest, Matthijs R., 2014. "Prices, Product Differentiation, And Heterogeneous Search Costs," IESE Research Papers D/1097, IESE Business School.
    8. Andrew Rhodes & Jidong Zhou, 2019. "Consumer Search and Retail Market Structure," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2607-2623, June.
    9. Ding, Yucheng & Zhang, Tianle, 2018. "Price-directed consumer search," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 106-135.
    10. Alexandre de Cornière, 2016. "Search Advertising," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 156-188, August.
    11. Casner, Ben, 2020. "Seller curation in platforms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    12. Natalia Fabra & Juan-Pablo Montero, 2022. "Product Lines and Price Discrimination in Markets with Information Frictions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 981-1001, February.
    13. Heski Bar-Isaac & Sandro Shelegia, 2023. "Search, Showrooming, and Retailer Variety," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(2), pages 251-270, March.
    14. Zemin (Zachary) Zhong, 2023. "Platform Search Design: The Roles of Precision and Price," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(2), pages 293-313, March.
    15. Gamp, Tobias & Krähmer, Daniel, 2022. "Biased Beliefs in Search Markets," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 365, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    16. Sander Heinsalu, 2023. "Greater search cost reduces prices," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(3), pages 923-947, April.
    17. Jose A. Carrasco & Rodrigo Yañez, 2022. "Sequential search and firm prominence," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(1), pages 209-233, July.
    18. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, September.
    19. Alexandre de Corniere, 2013. "Search Advertising," Economics Series Working Papers 649, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    20. Yongmin Chen & Tianle Zhang, 2018. "Entry and Welfare in Search Markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 55-80, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer search; Price competition; Information improvement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    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:cwl:cwldpp:2264. 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: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.html .

    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.