“A” Business by Any Other Name: Firm Name Choice as a Signal of Firm Quality
研究发现，名称以A或数字开头的管道公司收到的服务投诉是其他公司的五倍，且收费更高；这些公司更常在黄页和谷歌上做广告，而广告与投诉正相关。该结果通过一个企业质量不同、消费者搜索成本异质的简单模型得到解释。
This paper considers when a firm's deliberately chosen name can signal meaningful information. The average plumbing firm whose name begins with A or a number receives five times more service complaints than other firms and also charges higher prices. Relatedly, plumbers with A names advertise more in the Yellow Pages and on Google, and doing so is positively correlated with receiving complaints. As the use of A names is more prevalent in larger markets, I reconcile these findings with a simple model in which firms have different qualities and consumers have heterogeneous search costs.