2019/10/09 by Alexandre de Cornière, Greg Taylor
Business, Management and Accounting · Decision Sciences · Engineering · #Auction Theory and Applications #Digital Platforms and Economics #ICT Impact and Policies
paper · doi:10.1111/1756-2171.12298
openalex publication_date 2019/10/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Abstract We study situations in which consumers rely on a biased intermediary's advice when choosing among sellers. We introduce the notion that sellers' and consumers' payoffs can be congruent or conflicting , and show that this has important implications for the effects of bias. Under congruence, the firm benefiting from bias has an incentive to offer a better deal than its rival and consumers can be better‐off than under no bias. Under conflict, the favored firm offers lower utility, and bias harms consumers. We study various policies for dealing with bias and show that their efficacy also depends on whether the payoffs exhibit congruence or conflict.