This paper explores the strategic tradeoff between advertising and pricing when firms have asymmetric loyal market segments and also can compete for shoppers who purchase at the lowest advertised price. Two advertising structures consistent with real world settings are considered. In the first...

The nature of manufacturer's suggested retail prices (MSRPs) and whether their effect is pro- or anticompetitive is not well understood. We exploit a policy experiment in which a ban on MSRPs was imposed and then lifted a year later. We show that average prices increased by 2.1 percent as a...

Manufacturers frequently post non-binding public price recommendations, but neither the rationale for this practice nor its impact on prices is well understood. I develop a model in which recommendations signal a manufacturer's production cost to searching consumers, who then form beliefs about...