Experience Goods and Consumer Search
研究了消费者在购买前无法观察产品质量（体验品）时，搜索成本如何影响市场表现，发现更高的搜索成本可能促使企业提升质量，并在一定条件下增加消费者和总福利。
We introduce a search model where products differ in horizontal attributes and unobserved quality (“experience goods”), and firms can establish quality reputation. We show that the inability of consumers to observe quality before purchase significantly changes how search frictions affect market performance. In equilibrium, higher search costs reduce match values and increase price but can boost firms’ investment in product quality. Under plausible conditions, both consumer and total welfare initially increase in search cost, whereas both would monotonically decrease if quality were observable from search. We apply the analysis to online markets, where low search costs coexist with low-quality products.