Working Papers

The Optimal Level of Consultation (Job Market Paper) [full draft]

• Abstract: This paper studies how an information seller optimally manages information precision to maximize revenue from a consumer who pays to learn before taking an irreversible action. The key insight is that the seller provides the least informative signals when the consumer's belief is close to indifference, thereby prolonging engagement and increasing rents. This behavior generates a U-shaped relationship between optimal precision and the consumer’s prior belief, and this result is robust to alternative cost structures. When consumers hold heterogeneous priors, standard screening becomes infeasible, inducing the seller to offer a single pooling contract. The paper also develops an empirical framework to test whether sellers adjust information quality to extract rents from consumers with heterogeneous priors. The results show that information distortions may arise from the seller’s strategic need to manage the consumer's attention, introducing a new mechanism to the literature on dynamic information provision and advisory markets.

Work in Progress

Experimentation with Asymmetric Observation

Course Instructor 

• ECON 101: Microeconomic Theory - 2024 Summer (Rating: 8.25/9.00)