Controlling Sellers Who Provide Advice: Regulation and Competition
60 Pages Posted: 25 Feb 2019
Date Written: February 2019
Abstract
A monopoly seller advises buyers about which of two goods best fits their needs but may be tempted to steer buyers towards the higher margin good. For the seller to collect information about a buyer's needs and provide truthful advice, the profits from selling both goods must lie within an implementability cone. In the optimal regulation, pricing distortions and information-collection incentives are controlled separately by price regulation and fixed rewards respectively. This no longer holds when the seller has private information about costs as both problems interact. We study the extent to which competition and the threat by buyers to switch sellers can substitute for regulation.
Keywords: asymmetric information, Expertise, Mis-Selling, regulation
JEL Classification: D82, G24, I11, L13, L15, L51
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation