论文标题
信息不对称和搜索强度
Information Asymmetry and Search Intensity
论文作者
论文摘要
现有关于消费者搜索的研究同意，当消费者没有观察到卖家的生产边际成本时，他们会比他们差。在本文中，我们挑战了这一结论。我们采用同时搜索的规范模型，表明消费者不观察生产边际成本可能是有利的。原因是，在预期的是，消费者在不了解卖家的生产边际成本时更加强烈地进行搜索。更激烈的搜索对卖方施加了更高的竞争压力，这反过来又通过较低的价格使消费者受益。
The existing studies on consumer search agree that consumers are worse-off when they do not observe sellers' production marginal cost than when they do. In this paper we challenge this conclusion. Employing a canonical model of simultaneous search, we show that it may be favorable for consumer to not observe the production marginal cost. The reason is that, in expectation, consumer search more intensely when they do not know sellers' production marginal cost than when they know it. More intense search imposes higher competitive pressure on sellers, which in turn benefits consumers through lower prices.
