We model firms' quality disclosure and pricing in the presence of cursed consumers, who fail to be sufficiently skeptical about undisclosed quality. We show that cursed consumers are exploited in duopoly if firms are vertically differentiated, if there are few cursed consumers, and if average product quality is high. Three common consumer protection policies that work under monopoly, that is, mandatory disclosure, third party disclosure and consumer education, may all increase exploitation and decrease welfare. Even where these policies improve welfare, they often lead to a reduction in consumer surplus. Our conclusions hold in extensions with endogenous quality and horizontal differentiation.

中文翻译：

---

被诅咒的消费者和消费者保护政策的有效性*

我们在受诅咒的消费者面前对公司的质量披露和定价进行建模，这些消费者对未披露的质量没有足够的怀疑。我们表明，如果企业具有垂直差异化，如果被诅咒的消费者很少，并且平均产品质量很高，那么被诅咒的消费者就会在双寡头垄断中受到剥削。垄断下三种常见的消费者保护政策，即强制披露、第三方披露和消费者教育，都可能增加剥削并减少福利。即使这些政策改善了福利，它们也常常导致消费者剩余减少。我们的结论适用于内生质量和横向差异的扩展。