Procrastination Markets

主讲人: Takeshi Murooka (Associate Professor, Osaka University)

参与老师: （经院）胡涛、吴泽南、石凡奇；（国发院）汪浩、胡岠

作者：Takeshi Murooka , Paul Heidhues and Botond Koszegi

时间：2021年4月8日（周四）10:30-12:00

地点：线上（会议号附在文末）

报告摘要：

We develop models of markets with procrastinating consumers when competition operates, or is supposed to operate, both through the initial selection of providers and through the possibility of switching providers. As in other work, consumers fail to switch to better options after signing up with a firm, so at that stage they exert little downward pressure on the prices they pay. Unlike in other work, however, consumers --- falsely expecting to do still better in the future --- are not keen on starting with the best available offer, so at this stage they do not generate much price competition either. In fact, a competition paradox results: an increase in the number of firms or the intensity of marketing increases the frequency with which a consumer receives switching offers, so it facilitates procrastination and thereby potentially raises prices. By implication, continuous changes in the environment can, through a self-reinforcing entry or marketing process, lead to discontinuous changes in market outcomes. Sign-up deals serve their classically hypothesized role of returning ex-post profits to consumers extremely poorly, while in other senses they exacerbate the failure of price competition.

主讲人简介：

Takeshi Murooka received PhD at UC Berkeley in 2014. After working at University of Munich (Germany) in 2014-2017 as an assistant professor, he moved to Osaka University (Japan) as an associate professor. His primary fields are industrial organization and behavioral economics, with a focus on consumer naivety. Specifically, he has investigated market outcomes, welfare effects, and policy implications when firms sell products to consumers who may misperceive the product value. He has published several papers on this research topic in leading economics journals, such as Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Public Economics and American Economic Journal: Microeconomics.

形式：ZOOM会议

会议号：963 7895 5301

密码：941315