Trial or No Trial: Supplying Costly Signals to Improve Profits*
研究了垄断企业通过提供有限内容免费试用来帮助买家评估产品价值时的激励与风险，发现试用可以细分市场并提高对高估值买家的定价，但也可能因蚕食效应而损失部分价值。
ABSTRACT Many software and video game firms offer free trials with limited content to help buyers assess the likely value of the goods that they may purchase. This article examines fundamental issues related to the incentives and risks for a monopoly by providing a trial. Assuming that a seller can control the mix of components in a trial, we introduce a new mechanism for buyers’ inference of using a trial. We find that a trial may enable the seller to segment the market and charge a higher price to high‐valuation buyers, but can also cause a decline in demand. Moreover, the seller forfeits partial value of a full product through providing a free trial, so the benefit is offset by this cannibalization loss. In addition to the size and content of a trial, the distribution of buyers’ prior belief also affects a trial's ability to convey information. We show that a trial can provide more information if the prior belief is more concentrated in the tails of the distribution.