Ordered search and equilibrium obfuscation

Productivity Investment and Labor Force Participation in Search Equilibrium

The present paper contributes to the theoretical analysis of the human capital investment and participation decision of heterogeneous workers in the search and matching framework‎. ‎Its aim is to characterize the equilibrium and to identify the efficiency‎. ‎Here‎, the paper studies search equilibrium and matching to consider the participation decision of heterogeneous workers who have differen...

A Search Cost Model of Obfuscation

This paper develops search-theoretic models in which it is individually rational for firms to engage in obfuscation. It considers oligopoly competition between firms selling a homogeneous good to a population of rational consumers who incur search costs to learn each firm’s price. Search costs are endogenized: obfuscation is equated with unobservable actions that make it more time-consuming to ...

Money in Search Equilibrium, in Competitive Equilibrium, and in Competitive Search Equilibrium∗

We compare three pricing mechanisms for monetary economies: bargaining (search equilibrium); price taking (competitive equilibrium); and price posting (competitive search equilibrium). We do this in a framework that, in addition to considering different mechanisms, extends existing work on the microfoundations of money by allowing a general matching technology and endogenous entry. We study how...

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

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 ...