In some markets, such as the market for drugs or for financial services, sellers have better information than buyers regarding the matching between the buyer's needs and the good's actual characteristics. Depending on the market structure, this may lead to conflicts of interest and/or the...

Consumers have only partial knowledge before making a purchase decision, but can choose to acquire more detailed information. A firm can make it easier or harder for these consumers to obtain such information. We explore consumers' information gathering and the firm's integrated strategy for...

Goods and services vary along a number of dimensions independently. Customers can choose to acquire information to assess the quality of some dimensions and not others. Their choices affect firms' incentives to invest in quality and so lead to indirect externalities in consumers' choices. We...