Biased Beliefs in Search Markets
研究了消费者有偏信念如何影响搜索市场结果，发现当消费者高估最佳报价时，企业可能提供异常优惠的报价以满足其过高期望，从而可能改善所有消费者的福利。
We study the implications of biased consumer beliefs for search market outcomes in the seminal framework due to Diamond (1971). Biased consumers base their search strategy on a belief function that specifies for any (true) distribution of utility offers in the market a possibly incorrect distribution of utility offers. If biased consumers overestimate the best offer in the market, a novel type of equilibrium may emerge in which firms make exceptionally favorable offers in order to meet biased consumers’ unreasonably high expectations, which then become partially self-fulfilling. Consequently, the presence of biased consumers may improve the welfare of all consumers.