INCENTIVES FOR COST-REDUCING INVESTMENT IN A SIGNALING MODEL OF PRODUCT QUALITY

Often, consumers do not observe a firm's cost-reducing investment decision. The investment incentive can be weakened when product quality is unobservable before purchase because consumers do not know whether a lower price arises from lower costs or lower quality. This article examines this issue in a signalling model with both hidden information (about quality) and hidden action (about investment). Surprisingly, asymmetric information about quality may strengthen or weaken a firm's incentive to adopt a process innovation, depending on whether low-price or high-price signalling is used.