Shrouded Attributes and Information Suppression: Evidence from the Field

By Jennifer Brown, Tanjim Hossain, John Morgan. 2010

241 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We use field and natural experiments in online auctions to study the revenue effect of varying the level and disclosure of shipping charges. Our main findings are (1) disclosure affects revenues—for low shipping charges, a seller is better off disclosing; and (2) increasing shipping charges boosts revenues when these charges are hidden. These results are not explained by changes in the number of bidders.

Subfields: Management Science and Operations Research, Marketing, Safety Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c1725793b0ef8cc1c86266deff98c963f0b86e73

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In Management Science and Operations Research

In Marketing

In Safety Research

Citations in the corpus

RAISING THE STAKES (2018, background): “Similarly, Brown et al. (2013) documents similar behavior with respect to decisions about setting the temperature; when nudged towards slightly cooler temperatures, people do not adjust the thermostat but when nudged towards much cooler temperatures then people change the setting.”
The price does not include additional taxes, fees, and surcharges: A review of research on partitioned pricing☆ (2016, background): “Kim (2006) found that PP lowered price perceptions relative to AIP, but only when the surcharge's font size was small, but Brown, Hossain, and Morgan (2010) found”
Assessing Sale Strategies in Online Markets Using Matched Listings (2015, background): “Tyan (2005), Hossain and Morgan (2006), and Brown et al. (2010) all have studied data from eBay and found that increases in shipping fees can increase total seller revenue (inclusive of the shipping fee), suggesting that a dollar increase in the shipping fee does not lead bidders to reduce their bid”
Factorial Designs, Model Selection, and (Incorrect) Inference in Randomized Experiments (2019, methodology): “18 Shrouded Attributes and Information Suppression: Evidence from the Field Brown et al. (2010) use several experiments to study the revenue effect of varying the level and disclosure of shipping charges in online auctions.”
Is No News (Perceived As) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure (2015, unknown): “Brown, Hossain, and Morgan (2010) show that eBay customers are less elastic to shipping costs when they are listed separately from the base price.”
A Behavioral New Keynesian Model (2020, unknown): “Microeconomic evidence There is mounting microeconomic evidence for the existence of inattention to small dimensions of reality (Gabaix and Laibson (2006), Brown et al. (2010), Caplin et al. (2011), Gabaix (2019)) including taxes (Chetty et al.”
Do Consumers Respond to Marginal or Average Price? Evidence from Nonlinear Electricity Pricing (2014, unknown): “…Silva-Risso, and Zettelmeyer (2006); Gabaix and Laibson (2006); Hossain and Morgan (2006); Chetty, Looney, and Kroft (2009); Finkelstein (2009); Brown, Hossain, and Morgan (2010); Gabaix (2011); Malmendier and Lee (2011); Chetty (2012). and Zeckhauser (2004) relax the second assumption by…”
To Review or Not to Review? Limited Strategic Thinking at the Movie Box Office (2012, unknown): “Sellers in online auctions can selectively disclose shipping charges (Brown et al., 2007).”
Optimal Taxation with Behavioral Agents (2020, background): “…studies now document inattention to prices, e.g. Abaluck and Gruber (2011), Allcott and Taubinsky (2015), Allcott and Wozny (2014)(see also Busse et al. (2013)), Anagol and Kim (2012), Brown et al. (2010), Chetty (2015), DellaVigna (2009), and Ellison and Ellison (2009). tax problem.”