Spiegler, R.;
(2006)
Competition over agents with boundedly rational expectations.
Theoretical Economics
, 1
(2)
pp. 207-231.
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Abstract
I study a market model in which profit-maximizing firms compete in multi-dimensional pricing strategies over a consumer, who is limited in his ability to grasp such complicated objects and therefore uses a sampling procedure to evaluate them. Firms respond to increased competition with an increased effort to obfuscate, rather than with more competitive pricing. As a result, consumer welfare is not enhanced and may even deteriorate. Specifically, when firms control both the price and the quality of each dimension, and there are diminishing returns to quality, increased competition implies an efficiency loss which is entirely borne by consumers.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Competition over agents with boundedly rational expectations |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Publisher version: | http://econtheory.org/ojs/index.php/te/article/vie... |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright 2006 Ran Spiegler. Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial License 3.0 |
| Keywords: | Bounded rationality, industrial organization, multi-dimensional pricing, law of small numbers, market exploitation, obfuscation |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Economics |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/17311 |
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