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Information Congestion

Author

Listed:
  • Simon P. Anderson

    (Department of Economics, University of Virginia - Uniiversity of Virginia)

  • André de Palma

    (X-DEP-ECO - Département d'Économie de l'École Polytechnique - X - École polytechnique, ENS Cachan - École normale supérieure - Cachan)

Abstract

Advertising messages vie for scarce attention. "Junk" mail, "spam" e-mail, and telemarketing calls need both parties to exert effort to generate transactions. Message recipients supply attention depending on average message benefit, while senders are motivated by profits. Costlier message transmission may improve message quality so more messages are examined. Too many messages may be sent, or the wrong ones. A Do-Not-Call policy beats a ban, but too many individuals opt out. A monopoly gatekeeper performs better than personal access pricing if nuisance costs to receivers are moderate.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon P. Anderson & André de Palma, 2008. "Information Congestion," Working Papers hal-00349516, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00349516
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00349516
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

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