• Medientyp: E-Artikel
  • Titel: “A” Business by Any Other Name: Firm Name Choice as a Signal of Firm Quality
  • Beteiligte: McDevitt, Ryan C.
  • Erschienen: University of Chicago Press, 2014
  • Erschienen in: Journal of Political Economy, 122 (2014) 4, Seite 909-944
  • Sprache: Englisch
  • DOI: 10.1086/676333
  • ISSN: 1537-534X; 0022-3808
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  • Beschreibung: This paper considers when a firm’s deliberately chosen name can signal meaningful information. The average plumbing firm whose name begins with A or a number receives five times more service complaints than other firms and also charges higher prices. Relatedly, plumbers with A names advertise more in the Yellow Pages and on Google, and doing so is positively correlated with receiving complaints. As the use of A names is more prevalent in larger markets, I reconcile these findings with a simple model in which firms have different qualities and consumers have heterogeneous search costs.