Opaque selling
Anderson, S. P. & Celik, L. ORCID: 0000-0002-7668-6358 (2020). Opaque selling. Information Economics and Policy, 52, article number 100869. doi: 10.1016/j.infoecopol.2020.100869
Abstract
We study “opaque” selling in multiproduct environments – a marketing practice in which sellers strategically withhold product information by keeping important characteristics of their products hidden until after purchase. We show that a monopolist will always use opaque selling, but it is not first-best optimal to do so. However, opaque selling might be used at the constrained optimum (with the monopolist's pricing behavior taken as given). For linear disutility costs, it is optimal for a monopolist to offer a single opaque product.
Publication Type: | Article |
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Additional Information: | © 2020. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
Publisher Keywords: | Opaque products, Product line design, Product differentiation, Price discrimination |
Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions |
Departments: | School of Policy & Global Affairs > Economics |
SWORD Depositor: |
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.
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