Recent research has focused on the "description-experience gap": While rare events are overweighted in description based decisions, people tend to behave as if they underweight rare events in decisions based on experience. Barron and Erev (2003) and Hertwig, Barron, Weber, and Erev (2004) argue that such findings are substantive and call for a theory of decision making under risk other than Prospect Theory for decisions form experience. Fox and Hadar (2006) suggest that the discrepancy is due to sampling error: people are likely to sample rare events less often than objective probability implies, especially if their samples are small. The current paper examines the necessity of sample error in the underweighting of rare events. The first experiment shows that the gap persists even when people sample the entire population of outcomes and make a decision under risk rather than under uncertainty. A reanalysis of Barron and Erev (2003) further reveals that the gap persists even when subjects observe the expected frequency of rare events. The second experiment shows that the gap exists in a repeated decision making paradigm that controls for sample biases and the "hot stove" effect. Moreover, while underweighting persists in actual choices, overweighting is observed in judged probabilities. The results of the two experiments strengthen the suggestion that descriptive theories of choice that

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract There are two competing sellers of an experience good, one offers high quality, one low. The low-quality seller can engage in deceptive advertising, potentially fooling a buyer into thinking the product is better than it is. Although deceptive advertising might seem to harm the buyer, we Terms of use: Documents inshow that he could be better off when the low-quality seller can engage in deceptive advertising than not. We characterize the optimal deterrence rule that a regulatory agency seeking to punish deceptive practices should adopt. We show that greater protection against deceptive practices does not necessarily improve the buyer-welfare. * We are indebted to Benjamin Hermalin (the Editor) and two anonymous referees for insightful suggestions.

Improving a company’s bargaining position is often cited as a chief motivation to vertically integrate with suppliers. This paper expands on that view in building a new theory of vertical integration. In my model firms integrate to gain bargaining power against other suppliers in the production process. The cost of integration is a loss of flexibility in choosing the most suitable suppliers for a particular final product. I show that the firms who make the most specific investments in the production process have the greatest incentive to integrate. The theory provides novel insights into the understanding of numerous stylized facts such as the effect of financial development on the vertical structure of firms, the observed pattern from FDI to outsourcing in international trade, and the effect of technological obsolescence on organizations.

We study a Bertrand game where two sellers supplying products of different and unverifiable qualities can outwit potential clients through their (costly) deceptive advertising. We characterize a class of pooling equilibria where sellers post the same price regardless of their quality and low quality ones deceive buyers. Although in these equilibria low quality goods are purchased with positive probability, the buyer (expected) utility can be higher than in a fully separating equilibrium. It is also argued that low quality sellers invest more in deceptive advertising the better is their reputation vis-à-vis potential clients -i.e., firms that are better trusted by customers, have greater incentives to invest in deceptive advertising when they produce a low quality product. Finally, we characterize the optimal monitoring effort exerted by a regulatory agency who seeks to identify and punish deceptive practices. When the objective of this agency is to maximize consumer surplus, its monitoring effort is larger than under social welfare maximization. JEL Classification Numbers: L1

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractWe study internal incentives, transparency and firm performance in multidivisional organizations. Two independent divisions of the same firm design internal incentives, and decide whether to publicly disclose their performances. In each division a risk-neutral principal deals with a risk-averse (exclusive) agent under moral hazard. Each agent exerts an unverifiable effort that creates a spillover on the effort cost of the other agent. We first study the determinants of the optimal principal-agent contract with and without performance transparency. Then, we show how effort spillovers affect the equilibrium communication behavior of each division. Both principals commit to disclose the performance of their agents in equilibrium when efforts are complements, while no communication is the only equilibrium outcome when efforts are substitutes.JEL codes: D43, D82, L14.