Consumer search and optimal information

Dogan M., Hu J.

RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, cilt.53, sa.2, ss.386-403, 2022 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 53 Sayı: 2
  • Basım Tarihi: 2022
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1111/1756-2171.12411
  • Dergi Adı: RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Periodicals Index Online, ABI/INFORM, Business Source Elite, Business Source Premier, CAB Abstracts, EconLit, INSPEC, Public Administration Abstracts, vLex, DIALNET
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.386-403
  • İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

This article studies an information design problem in a sequential consumer search environment. Consumers, whose valuation of firms' products is uncertain, observe a noisy signal about the valuation upon being matched with a firm. The goal is to characterize those signal structures that maximize consumer surplus. We show that the consumer-optimal signal structure can be found within the class of conditional unit-elastic demand signal distributions. A rich set of properties and comparative statics of the consumer-optimal signal distributions are also derived.