Prices as signals of quality : experimentation and information acquisition
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2015
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Abstract
This paper examines the optimal pricing strategy for newly introduced experience goods in a two-period monopoly market with experimentation and private information about quality. Consumers learn about quality through price signaling and experimentation, and communicate their ndings to other buyers via word of mouth. We show the existence of a unique separating equilibrium that satis es the intuitive criterion. In this equilibrium, a high-quality seller signals high quality through a low introductory price that rises in the next period (after experimentation has occurred), while a low-quality one charges a high introductory price, which declines over time because the revealed information is likely to be bad. This result helps explain recent empirical evidence and case studies on the introductory pricing strategies of rms entering foreign product markets.
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Tesis (Doctorado en Economía)--Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2015