Competition and consumer search costs can lead to price dispersion in an oligopoly. IO research has long identified the existence of search costs and estimated their distribution and is now beginning to study which consumers sit where in the distribution. This paper argues for a view of consumer...

Workhorse economic models used for studying the market impacts of search frictions assume constant search costs: individuals pay the same cost to obtain price information each time they search. This paper provides evidence on a new form of search costs: startup costs. Exploiting a natural...