In Chapter 1, I propose a model in which consumers base their purchasing decisions upon their recollections of the product quality, and in which firms can use persuasive advertising in order to change these recollections. Although consumers are aware that such advertising has occurred and take...

Illegal or unwanted waste disposal methods such as dumping and export are prevalent in practice. To minimize the negative impact of these methods, policymakers have implemented laws and regulations designed to combat them. Even so, violations are rampant as a high degree of heterogeneity between...

Professional services firms (e.g. Consultants, Accounting Firms or Advertising Agencies) generate and sell business solutions to their customers. In doing so, they can leverage the cumulative experience gained from serving their customer base to either reduce their variable costs or increase the...

Sometimes we desire change, a break from the same, or an opportunity to fulfill different aspects of our needs. Noting that consumers seek variety, several approaches have been developed to diversify items recommended by personalized recommender systems. However, current diversification...

This paper develops and tests a model of sequential decision making where a first stage of ranking a set of alternatives is followed by a second stage of determining the value of these same alternatives. The model assumes a boundedly rational Bayesian decision maker who is uncertain about...

One of the hallmarks of competitive interaction is each firm’s desire to differentiate from rivals. Although differentiation may be achieved through product related choices, advertising levels may constitute another key mechanism. In this paper, we examine under what conditions firms will...