The Good, the Bad, and the Complex: Product Design with Imperfect Information
研究了产品设计者如何同时决定产品的质量和复杂性，发现复杂性并非低质量产品的必然特征，而设计者与用户的利益一致性、产品需求和竞争程度会影响两者的权衡。
We study the joint determination of product quality and complexity. In our model complexity affects how difficult it is for an agent to acquire information about product quality. An agent can accept or reject a product proposed by a designer, who can affect the quality and the complexity of the product. We find that complexity is not a necessary feature of low-quality products. An increase in designer–agent alignment leads to more complex but better-quality products. However, higher product demand or lower competition among designers leads to more complex and lower-quality products. We relate our findings to the existing empirical evidence.