Information Congestion

Abstract

Advertising messages compete for scarce attention. ?Junk? mail, ?spam? e-mail, and telemarketing calls need both parties to exert effort to generate transactions. Message recipients supply attention depending on average message beneÞt. Senders are motivated by proÞts. Costlier message transmission may improve message quality so more messages are examined. Too many messages may be sent, or the wrong ones. A Do-Not-Call policy beats a ban, but too many individuals opt out. A monopoly gatekeeper performs better than personal access pricing if nuisance costs are moderate. The medium is the message with multiple channels, and there is excessive indiscriminate mailing.information overload, congestion, advertising, common property resource, overÞshing, two-sided markets, junk mail, email, telemarketing, Do Not Call List, message pricing, the Medium is the Message, market research.