Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1986
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1086/467808
Abstract
Consumers are a lot like fish, out there waiting to be hooked. Like most images, this one is a caricature of reality. The choice and search effort of consumers is suppressed in order to explore the implications of selling activity by manufacturers and retailers. In particular, the fishing analogy suggests that there is a tendency toward excessive selling activity if sellers do not take into account the effects of their activity on the costs of their rivals. However, sellers, like fishermen, have an incentive to arrange their affairs to mitigate the dissipation of rents. This argument is developed in Section I. The conclusion that sellers might overspend on selling activity appears inconsistent with the observation that increased advertising frequently results in lower consumer prices; however, it is not. The apparent paradox is resolved in Section II. In Section III, some speculations on the relationship between marketing and the destruction of social capital are put forth.
Disciplines
Commercial Law | Law | Law and Economics
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Victor P. Goldberg,
Fishing and Selling,
15
J. Legal Stud.
173
(1986).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/2641
Comments
© 1986 by The University of Chicago.