IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/vir/virpap/364.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Information Congestion

Author

Listed:
  • Simon P. Anderson
  • André de Palma

Abstract

Advertising messages compete 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 beneÞt. Senders are motivated by proÞts. 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 are moderate. The medium is the message with multiple channels, and there is excessive indiscriminate mailing.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon P. Anderson & André de Palma, 2006. "Information Congestion," Virginia Economics Online Papers 364, University of Virginia, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:vir:virpap:364
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.as.virginia.edu/RePEc/vir/virpap/papers/virpap364.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maris Goldmanis & Ali Hortaçsu & Chad Syverson & Önsel Emre, 2010. "E-Commerce and the Market Structure of Retail Industries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(545), pages 651-682, June.
    2. Michael Spence, 1976. "Product Selection, Fixed Costs, and Monopolistic Competition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 43(2), pages 217-235.
    3. Il-Horn Hann & Kai-Lung Hui & Sang-Yong Tom Lee & Ivan Png, 2005. "Consumer Privacy and Marketing Avoidance," Industrial Organization 0503009, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Mark Armstrong, 2006. "Competition in two‐sided markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, September.
    5. Stegeman, Mark, 1991. "Advertising in Competitive Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 210-223, March.
    6. Gene M. Grossman & Carl Shapiro, 1984. "Informative Advertising with Differentiated Products," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(1), pages 63-81.
    7. Avinash Dixit & Victor Norman, 1978. "Advertising and Welfare," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(1), pages 1-17, Spring.
    8. Simon P. Anderson & André de Palma, 2013. "Shouting to Be Heard in Advertising," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(7), pages 1545-1556, July.
    9. Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael L. Katz, 2004. "Sender or Receiver: Who Should Pay to Exchange an Electronic Message?," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(3), pages 423-447, Autumn.
    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. Simon P. Anderson & André de Palma, 2012. "Competition for attention in the Information (overload) Age," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(1), pages 1-25, March.
    12. Loder Theodore & Van Alstyne Marshall & Wash Rick, 2006. "An Economic Response to Unsolicited Communication," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-38, March.
    13. Carl Shapiro, 1980. "Advertising and Welfare: Comment," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 11(2), pages 749-752, Autumn.
    14. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2009. "Brand and Price Advertising in Online Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(7), pages 1139-1151, July.
    15. Timothy Van Zandt, 2004. "Information Overload in a Network of Targeted Communication," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(3), pages 542-560, Autumn.
    16. Stahl II Dale O., 1994. "Oligopolistic Pricing and Advertising," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 162-177, October.
    17. Doh-Shin Jeon & Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 2004. "On the Receiver-Pays Principle," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(1), pages 85-110, Spring.
    18. Simon P. Anderson & Stephen Coate, 2005. "Market Provision of Broadcasting: A Welfare Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 947-972.
    19. Diamond, Peter A., 1971. "A model of price adjustment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 156-168, June.
    20. Kai-Lung Hui & I.P.L. Png, 2005. "The Economics of Privacy," Industrial Organization 0505007, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 29 Aug 2005.
    21. repec:reg:rpubli:272 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Engers, Maxim & Gans, Joshua S, 1998. "Why Referees Are Not Paid (Enough)," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1341-1349, December.
    23. Willmore, C., 1999. "A Penny for your Thoughts: E-Mail and the Under-Valuation of Expert Time," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 551, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    24. Mark Armstrong Author-Email: mark.armstrong@ucl.ac.uk Author-Workplace-Name: University College of London, 2006. "Competition in Two-Sided Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, Autumn.
    25. Gerard R. Butters, 1977. "Equilibrium Distributions of Sales and Advertising Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 465-491.
    26. Willmore, Chris, 1999. "A penny for your thoughts: e-mail and the under-valuation of expert time," Economic Research Papers 269302, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    27. 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.
    28. Stahl, Dale O, II, 1989. "Oligopolistic Pricing with Sequential Consumer Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 700-712, September.
    29. Bagwell, Kyle, 2007. "The Economic Analysis of Advertising," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 28, pages 1701-1844, Elsevier.
    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. Simon P. Anderson & Régis Renault, 2006. "Advertising Content," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 93-113, March.
    2. Creane, Anthony & Manduchi, Agostino, 2022. "Informative advertising in monopolistically competitive markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    4. Simon P. Anderson & André de Palma, 2007. "Information Congestion: open access in a two-sided market," THEMA Working Papers 2007-10, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    5. Anderson, Simon P. & Gabszewicz, Jean J., 2006. "The Media and Advertising: A Tale of Two-Sided Markets," Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, in: V.A. Ginsburgh & D. Throsby (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 567-614, Elsevier.
    6. Astorne-Figari, Carmen & López, José Joaquín & Yankelevich, Aleksandr, 2019. "Advertising for consideration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 653-669.
    7. McCarthy, Ian M., 2016. "Advertising intensity and welfare in an equilibrium search model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 20-26.
    8. Simon P. Anderson & André de Palma, 2012. "Competition for attention in the Information (overload) Age," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(1), pages 1-25, March.
    9. Lola Esteban & José M. Hernández & José Luis Moraga‐González, 2006. "Customer Directed Advertising and Product Quality," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(4), pages 943-968, December.
    10. Konishi, Hideo & Sandfort, Michael T., 2002. "Expanding demand through price advertisement," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(7), pages 965-994, September.
    11. Alexandre de Corniere, 2013. "Search Advertising," Economics Series Working Papers 649, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    12. Immordino Giovanni, 2009. "Advertising and Cost Reduction," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-15, April.
    13. Timothy Van Zandt, 2004. "Information Overload in a Network of Targeted Communication," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(3), pages 542-560, Autumn.
    14. Levent Çelik, 2008. "Monopoly Provision of Tune-ins," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp362, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    15. 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.
    16. Alexandre de Cornière, 2009. "Targeted advertising with consumer search: an economic analysis of keywords advertising," Working Papers halshs-00575074, HAL.
    17. Ivan Pastine & Tuvana Pastine, 2011. "Coordination In Markets With Consumption Externalities: Advertising And Product Quality," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 79(1), pages 45-62, January.
    18. Simon P. Anderson & Régis Renault, 2013. "The Advertising Mix for a Search Good," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 69-83, April.
    19. Alexandre de Cornière, 2016. "Search Advertising," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 156-188, August.
    20. Christou, C. & Vettas, N., 2008. "On informative advertising and product differentiation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 92-112, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    information overload; congestion; advertising; common property resource; overÞshing; two-sided markets; junk mail; email; telemarketing; Do Not Call List; message pricing; the Medium is the Message; market research.;
    All these keywords.

    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

    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:vir:virpap:364. 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: Debby Stanford (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.virginia.edu/economics/home.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.