Incentives for Cost-Reducing Investment in a Signalling Model of Product Quality
研究消费者无法观察企业成本降低投资时，产品质量信息不对称如何影响投资激励，发现不对称信息可能增强或削弱创新动力，取决于企业采用低价还是高价信号。
Often, consumers do not observe a firm's cost-reducing investment decision. The investment incentive can be weakened when product quality is unobservable before purchase because consumers do not know whether a lower price arises from lower costs or lower quality. This articles examines this issue in a signalling model with both hidden information (about quality) and hidden action (about investment). Surprisingly, asymmetric information about quality may strengthen or weaken a firm's incentive to adopt a process innovation, depending on whether low-price or high-price signalling is used.