Ioana Chioveanu
Economist whose model shows obfuscation as an equilibrium strategy rather than a lapse in standards.
Who they are
Chioveanu works on industrial organisation. The finding that matters for a shopper is that nobody has to decide to mislead for pricing to become hard to compare.
Key papers
Chioveanu, I., & Zhou, J. (2013). Management Science, 59(11), 2450-2469.
Key ideas
Identical sellers of a homogeneous product compete in both prices and price frames.
Frames that reduce comparability cause confusion and lower price sensitivity, which sustains profits in a market that would otherwise compete them away.
The nature of the equilibrium depends on whether frame differentiation or frame complexity is more confusing.
Concepts on this site
Sources
- doi:10.1287/mnsc.2013.1716