In many markets consumer biases do not affect prices, since competition forces firms to price their products close to marginal cost; competition protects the consumer. We show that noisy consumer product evaluations undermine the force of competition, enabling firms to charge high mark-ups in...

Social scientists have presented evidence that suggests discrimination is ubiquitous—across several heterogeneous labor markets, as well as product markets as diverse as home insurance and new car sales, women, nonwhites, and the elderly have been found to be the target of discriminatory...