Advertising for Attention in a Consumer Search Model
研究了消费者搜索产品时，广告如何影响其访问顺序，发现搜索成本上升会提高广告投入，但可能同时损害消费者福利和企业利润。
We model the idea that when consumers search for products, they first visit the firm whose advertising is most salient. The gains a firm derives from being visited early increase in search costs, so equilibrium advertising increases as search costs rise. As a result, higher search costs may decrease both consumer welfare and firm profits. We extend the basic model by allowing for firm heterogeneity in advertising costs. Firms that raise attention more easily advertise more but also charge lower prices and obtain higher profits. As advertising cost asymmetries increase, consumer surplus falls and aggregate profits rise.