Markets with Imperfect Information Transmission

当一个潜在的购房者发现一个房子，似乎他是完美的，但已经在市场上有一段时间，他自然是怀疑的原因，它没有卖早。 (The这里提出的分析可以应用于各种物品的销售，如耐用设备、企业或艺术品。2为了具体起见，讨论是在住房市场的背景下进行的。 有三种可能的解释（两个好的和一个坏的）。 首先，他可能是第一个发现这所房子的潜在买家。 其次，考虑到早期潜在买家的品味，这套房子可能定价过高。 第三（也是最令人担忧的），早期的潜在买家可能已经发现了房子里的一个缺陷，而这个缺陷对他来说并不明显。他对每种可能性的权重取决于市场的特征，如需求的总体水平、买家口味的分布，以及他是否能观察到以前公布的价格的历史。此外，房屋的卖方可能能够通过其定价策略和信息披露来影响潜在买方的质量评估。 本计画以双边资讯不对称与消费者学习的模式来研究不完全资讯传递的问题，其结构如下。卖家被认为知道她的房子的质量，但随着时间的推移，在不知道消费者口味的情况下发布要价。 消费者在报价时知道自己的特殊偏好，但不知道房子的质量。 出价最高的消费者承诺购买房屋，但必须经过良好的质量检查。 此外，在销售季节后期发现市场上的房子的消费者使用市场上的时间来更新他们对质量的评估。 初步的发现提出了几个有趣的现象。 首先，当检查结果没有公开记录，消费者观察要价的历史时，卖方有动机在销售季节早期发布过高的价格，以“抑制”传递给潜在买家的信号，这些买家可能会在季节后期发现房子出售销售。如果一个潜在的买家在季节后期到达，知道卖家最初的要价相对较高，那么他很容易相信房子没有卖得更早，因为缺乏合适的买家（即，一个喜欢它的人足以支付高昂的要价）。 相反，如果一个潜在的买家谁在本赛季后期到达知道，卖方的最初要价相对较低，那么他很容易相信，房子没有卖早，由于检测低质量。另一种说法是，一个从高价房子中走开的潜在买家向后来的买家传达了很少的关于质量的信息，但一个从低价房子中走开的潜在买家传递了一个关于他对质量评估的非常强烈的信号。 在检查结果没有公开记录、消费者没有观察到要价历史的情况下，销售者有动机在销售季节早期发布异常低的价格，以便尽早进行销售，从而避免不利信息的传播。 这一发现的实质体现在一个经常听到的民间智慧中，即卖方应注意将初始价格定得过高。早期定价过高的危险在于，晚到的买家和不观察价格历史的买家自然会怀疑房子没有早点卖出去的原因。 与开始公布较低的初始价格相比，在这个时候纠正初始定价过高的成本很高。 事实上，一个卖方如果在最初的报价中定得太高，可能会受到诱惑，在以后的时间里继续定价过高，从而导致拒绝报价和价格下跌的恶性循环。 最后，卖方可能被迫将其房屋从市场上撤下，或以与她在早期本可获得的价格相比非常低的价格进行销售。 初步调查结果还表明，要求检查结果公开备案和使用信誉良好的经纪人的法律有理论支持。 这些措施可以缓解潜在买方对质量和随之而来的低效率的担忧。 几个扩展的基本模型也提出了研究。首先，调查检查成本的影响是很自然的。有人认为，较高的检查费用将产生更低的效率，但涉及信息传递的问题将在某种程度上得到改善。第二，环境中，一个高品质的家的卖方可以信号的价值，她的房子张贴一个高要价的建议进行研究。 这里一个有趣的可能性是，随着高质量房屋的卖方从均衡的“集中”阶段切换到“分离”阶段，房屋的价格实际上可能在两个时期之间上涨。 这种反常的定价行为有时在真实的房地产和其他市场上也能观察到。 最后一个扩展的基本模型提出的研究是考虑环境中，卖方有较少的承诺和议价能力。

When a prospective home buyer discovers a house that appears to him to be flawless but that has been on the market for some time, he is naturally suspicious about the reason it did not sell earlier. (The analysis proposed here can be applied to the sale of a variety of items such as a durable piece of equipment, a business, or a work-of-art. The discussion is set in the context of a housing market merely for concreteness.) There are three possible explanations (two good and one bad). First, he may be the first potential buyer to have discovered the house. Second, the house simply may have been over-priced given the tastes of earlier potential buyers. Third (and most worrisome), earlier potential buyers may have detected a flaw in the house not apparent to him. The weight he ascribes to each of these possibilities depends upon the characteristics of the market such as the overall level of demand, the distribution of buyer tastes, and whether he can observe the history of previously posted prices. Also, the seller of the house may be able to influence a potential buyer's quality assessment through her pricing strategy and disclosure of information. This project studies these issues of imperfect information transmission in a model of two-sided asymmetric information and consumer learning with the following structure. The seller is presumed to know the quality of her house, but posts asking-prices over time without knowing the realization of consumer tastes. Consumers know their own idiosyncratic preferences when making offers, but do not know the quality of the house. The consumer who makes the highest offer commits to buy the house subject to a favorable inspection on quality. In addition, consumers who discover the house on the market late in the selling season use time-on-the-market to update their assessments of quality. Preliminary findings suggest several intriguing phenomena. First, when inspection outcomes are not publicly recorded and consumers observe the history of asking prices, the seller has an incentive to post inordinately high prices early in the selling season in order to ``dampen'' the signal transmitted to prospective buyers who may discover the house for sale late in the season. If a potential buyer who arrives late in the season knows that the seller's initial asking price was relatively high, then he is apt to believe that the house did not sell earlier due to lack of a suitable buyer (i.e., one who liked it enough to pay the high asking price). Conversely, if a potential buyer who arrives late in the season knows that the seller's initial asking price was relatively low, then he is apt to believe that the house did not sell earlier due to detection of low quality. Another way of saying this is that a prospective buyer who walks away from a high-priced house conveys little information concerning quality to subsequent buyers, but a prospective buyer who walks away from a low-priced house transmits a very strong signal regarding his assessment of quality. In the case when inspection outcomes are not publicly recorded and consumers do not observe the history of asking prices, the seller has an incentive to post inordinately low prices early in the selling season in order to make an early sale and thereby avoid the transmission of unfavorable information. The essence of this finding is captured in the often-heard folk wisdom that a seller should beware of setting her initial price too high. The danger from over-pricing in early periods is that a buyer who arrives late and who does not observe the price history will naturally be suspicious about the reason the house did not sell earlier. The cost of correcting the initial over-pricing at this juncture is high as compared with the cost of posting a lower initial price to begin with. Indeed, a seller who posts too high an initial price may be tempted to continue over-pricing in later periods resulting in a vicious circle of rejected offers and falling prices. Ultimately, the seller may be forced to remove her house from the market or to make a sale at a very low price as compared with what she could have secured in early periods. Preliminary findings also suggest theoretical support for laws that require inspection outcomes to be publicly filed and for the use of reputable brokers. Such measures can ease potential buyers' concerns about quality and the concomitant inefficiency. Several extensions to the basic model are also proposed for study. First, it is natural to investigate the impact of inspection costs. It is conjectured that higher inspection costs will generate more inefficiency but that problems involving the transmission of information will be ameliorated to some degree. Second, environments in which the seller of a high-quality home can signal the value of her house by posting a high asking-price are proposed for study. An intriguing possibility here is that the price of a house might actually rise between periods as the seller of a high-quality house switches from a `pooling` to a `separating` phase of the equilibrium. Such anomalous pricing behavior is sometimes observed in real estate and other markets. A final extension of the basic model proposed for study is to consider environments in which the seller has less commitment and bargaining power.