This paper studies optimal product line design when consumers need to incur costly deliberation to uncover their valuations for quality. To induce deliberation, a firm must maintain quality dispersion and cut the price of the high-end product so that consumers are motivated to deliberate in the...

This paper studies optimal product line design when consumers need to incur costly deliberation to uncover their valuation for quality. To induce deliberation, the firm must maintain quality dispersion and cut the price of the high-end product, so that consumers are motivated to deliberate in...

Mere observation of others' choices can be informative about product quality. This paper develops an individual-level dynamic model of observational learning, and applies it to a novel data set from the U.S. kidney market where transplant candidates on a waiting list sequentially decide whether...

Popularity information is usually thought to reinforce existing sales trends by encouraging customers to flock to mainstream products with broad appeal. We suggest a countervailing market force: popularity information may benefit niche products with narrow appeal disproportionately, because the...