Getting Information to Consumers: How to Inform Their Choices Effectively

What is it about?

Key Points • Providing information is a popular tool for consumer protection; five considerations help implement it well. • Given consumers’ limited attention, lengthy disclosures hinder information-gathering and subsequent behavior change. • Effectively formatting information makes high-level goals salient and then allows consumers to drill down into the details and optimize goal achievement. • Sometimes, providing information can reduce consumer well-being; capturing consumers’ beliefs prior to seeing information will help identify these domains. • Policies that mandate information occur in a dynamic environment, where firms and organizations will respond to new requirements by changing their product assortments and advertising. Robust policies account for these likely responses from firms.

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