IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oxf/wpaper/379.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Prominence and Consumer Search

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Armstrong
  • John Vickers
  • Jidong Zhou

Abstract

This paper examines the implications of "prominence" in search markets. We model prominence by supposing that the prominent firm will be sampled first by all consumers. If there are no systematic quality differences among firms, we find that the prominent firm will charge a lower price than its non-prominent rivals. The impact of making a firm prominent is that it will typically lead to higher industry profit but lower consumer surplus and welfare. The model is extended by introducing heterogeneous product qualities, in which case the firm with the highest-quality product has the greatest incentive to become prominent, and making it prominent will boost industry profit, consumer surplus and welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Armstrong & John Vickers & Jidong Zhou, 2008. "Prominence and Consumer Search," Economics Series Working Papers 379, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:379
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:201760d6-ece6-47fe-b8d8-8aafd6403df9
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Susan Athey & Glenn Ellison, 2011. "Position Auctions with Consumer Search," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(3), pages 1213-1270.
    2. Varian, Hal R, 1980. "A Model of Sales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 651-659, September.
    3. Ali Hortaçsu & Chad Syverson, 2004. "Product Differentiation, Search Costs, and Competition in the Mutual Fund Industry: A Case Study of S&P 500 Index Funds," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 403-456.
    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. 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.
    6. Ho, Daniel E. & Imai, Kosuke, 2006. "Randomization Inference With Natural Experiments: An Analysis of Ballot Effects in the 2003 California Recall Election," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 101, pages 888-900, September.
    7. Kyle Bagwell & Garey Ramey, 1994. "Advertising and Coordination," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(1), pages 153-171.
    8. 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.
    9. Brigitte C. Madrian & Dennis F. Shea, 2001. "The Power of Suggestion: Inertia in 401(k) Participation and Savings Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1149-1187.
    10. Perry, Motty & Wigderson, Avi, 1986. "Search in a Known Pattern," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(1), pages 225-230, February.
    11. Liran Einav & Leeat Yariv, 2006. "What's in a Surname? The Effects of Surname Initials on Academic Success," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 175-187, Winter.
    12. Weitzman, Martin L, 1979. "Optimal Search for the Best Alternative," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(3), pages 641-654, May.
    13. Bagwell, Kyle & Ramey, Garey, 1994. "Coordination Economies, Advertising, and Search Behavior in Retail Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 498-517, June.
    14. Varian, Hal R, 1985. "Price Discrimination and Social Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 870-875, September.
    15. Diamond, Peter A., 1971. "A model of price adjustment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 156-168, June.
    16. Maria Arbatskaya, 2007. "Ordered search," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 119-126, March.
    17. Robert, Jacques & Stahl, Dale O, II, 1993. "Informative Price Advertising in a Sequential Search Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 657-686, May.
    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. Zhou, Jidong, 2009. "Prominence and Consumer Search: The Case With Multiple Prominent Firms," MPRA Paper 12554, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Mark Armstrong, 2017. "Ordered Consumer Search," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(5), pages 989-1024.
    3. Mark Armstrong & Jidong Zhou, 2011. "Paying for Prominence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(556), pages 368-395, November.
    4. Zhou, Jidong, 2011. "Ordered search in differentiated markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 253-262, March.
    5. Chen, Yongmin & Zhang, Tianle, 2018. "Intermediaries and consumer search," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 255-277.
    6. Fershtman, Chaim & Fishman, Arthur & Zhou, Jidong, 2018. "Search and categorization," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 225-254.
    7. Haan, Marco A. & Moraga-González, José L. & Petrikaitė, Vaiva, 2018. "A model of directed consumer search," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 223-255.
    8. Wilson, Chris M., 2010. "Ordered search and equilibrium obfuscation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 496-506, September.
    9. 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.
    10. Chen, Yongmin & Li, zhuozheng & Zhang, Tianle, 2019. "A Search Model of Experience Goods," MPRA Paper 93547, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Chen, Yongmin, 2023. "Search and Competition Under Product Quality Uncertainty," MPRA Paper 116609, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. 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.
    13. Roberto Burguet & Vaiva Petrikaite, 2017. "Targeted Advertising and Costly Consumer Search," Working Papers 971, Barcelona School of Economics.
    14. Alexandre de Corniere, 2013. "Search Advertising," Economics Series Working Papers 649, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    15. Soberman, David A. & Xiang, Yi, 2022. "Designing the content of advertising in a differentiated market," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 190-211.
    16. Alexandre de Cornière, 2016. "Search Advertising," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 156-188, August.
    17. Raluca M. Ursu & Daria Dzyabura, 2020. "Retailers’ product location problem with consumer search," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 125-154, June.
    18. Chia-Ling Hsu & Rafael Matta & Sergey V. Popov & Takeharu Sogo, 2017. "Optimal Product Placement," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 51(1), pages 127-145, August.
    19. José L. Moraga-González & Vaiva Petrikaitė, 2013. "Search costs, demand-side economies, and the incentives to merge under Bertrand competition," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 44(3), pages 391-424, September.
    20. Carlin, Bruce I., 2009. "Strategic price complexity in retail financial markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 278-287, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer Search; Marketing; Prominent Display; Product Differentiation;
    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:oxf:wpaper:379. 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: Anne Pouliquen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfeixuk.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.