Consumer confusion, obfuscation and price regulation

Price Competition and Consumer Confusion

This paper proposes a model in which identical sellers of a homogenous product compete in both prices and price frames (i.e., ways to present price information). We model price framing by assuming that firms’ frame choices affect the comparability of their price offers: consumers may fail to compare prices due to frame differentiation, and due to frame complexity. In the symmetric equilibrium t...

Price Competition with Consumer Confusion

This paper proposes a model in which identical sellers of a homogenous product compete in both prices and price frames (i.e., ways to present price information). We model price framing by assuming that firms’ frame choices affect the comparability of their price offers: consumers may fail to compare prices due to frame differentiation, and due to frame complexity. In the symmetric equilibrium t...

Price Obfuscation and Consumer Search: An Empirical Analysis∗

Firms affect consumer demand not only through their pricing decisions, but also through the ways in which they release price information to consumers. Non-uniform price schedules or the inclusion of complex pricing elements hinder comparison shopping, possibly eliminating products from consideration for purchase. We study the effect of such price complexity on consumer search and demand in the ...

Towards a Conceptual Model of Consumer Confusion

A-S consumers are provided with ever-increasing amounts of information from more products sold through more channels and promoted in more ways, the notion of marketplace confusion is becoming Increasingly important. From the extant literature, we propose and define three types of confusion resulting from brand similarity, information load, and misleading or ambiguous information. This latter ty...

Search, Obfuscation, and Price Elasticities on the Internet: Supplementary Material