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Quarterly Journal of Economics Vol. 125 No. 2 2010

Shrouded Attributes and Information Suppression: Evidence from the Field*

Jennifer Brown1; Tanjim Hossain2; John Morgan3

1 Northwestern University · 2 University of Toronto · 3 University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1162/qjec.2010.125.2.859
Volume
125
Issue
2
Pages
859-876
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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