CHAPTER • Uncertainty and Consumer Behavior 175 EX AMPLE THE VALUE OF INFORMATION IN AN ONLINE CONSUMER ELECTRONICS MARKET Internet-based price comparison sites offer a valuable informational resource to consumers, as shown by a study of a leading price-comparison website, Shopper.com Researchers studied price information provided to consumers on over 1,000 topselling electronics products for an 8-month period They found that consumers saved about 16% when using this website versus shopping in the store, because the website significantly reduced the cost of finding the lowest priced product.8 The value of price comparison information is not the same for everyone and for every product Competition matters The study found that when only two firms list prices on Shopper.com, consumers save 11% But the savings increase with the number of competitors, jumping to 20% when more than 30 companies list prices One might think that the Internet will generate so much information about prices that only the lowestprice products will be sold in the long run, causing the value of such information to eventually decline to zero So far, this has not been the case There are fixed costs for parties to both transmit and to acquire information over the Internet These include the costs of maintaining servers and the fees that sites such as Shopper.com charge to list prices at their sites The result is that prices are likely to continue to vary widely as the Internet continues to grow and mature You might think that more information is always a good thing As the following example shows, however, that is not always the case EX AMPLE 5 DOCTORS, PATIENTS, AND THE VALUE OF INFORMATION Suppose you were seriously ill and required major surgery Assuming you wanted to get the best care possible, how would you go about choosing a surgeon and a hospital to provide that care? Many people would ask their friends or their primary-care physician for a recommendation Although this might be helpful, a truly informed decision would probably require more detailed information For example, how successful has a recommended surgeon and her affiliated hospital been in performing the particular operation that you need? How many of her patients have died or had serious complications from the operation, and how these numbers compare with those for other surgeons and hospitals? This kind of information is likely to be difficult or impossible for most patients to obtain Would patients be better off if detailed information about the performance records of doctors and hospitals were readily available? Not necessarily More information is often, but not always, better Interestingly in this case, access to performance information could actually lead to worse health outcomes Why? Because access to such information would create two different incentives that would affect the behavior of both doctors and patients First, it would allow patients to choose doctors with better performance records, which creates an incentive for doctors to perform better That is a good thing But second, it would encourage doctors to limit their practices to patients who are in relatively good health The reason is that very old or very sick patients are more likely to have complications or die as a result of treatment; doctors who treat such patients are likely to have worse performance records (other factors being equal) To the extent that doctors would be judged according to performance, they would Michael Baye, John Morgan, and Patrick Scholten,” The Value of Information in an Online Electronics Market.”Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, vol 22 (2003): 17–25