To disclose or to conceal? Comparison of different disclosure policies in queues with loss-averse customers

Abstract

In many service industries, information disclosure about the product can alleviate customers’ loss aversion induced by uncertain product valuation. In this paper, we consider a single-server queueing system in which the manager who privately learns the valuation information discloses the valuation information strategically to loss-averse customers. We investigate the impact of the customers’ loss aversion on the system’s equilibrium arrival rate and the manager’s optimal disclosure policy. We find that loss aversion restrains customers from joining the queue. Surprisingly, we find that there is no one disclosure policy that always prevails over other disclosure policies. Specifically, the full disclosure policy is optimal only when the valuation is large and the degree of loss aversion is moderate. The full non-disclosure policy is optimal when the degree of loss aversion is too large or too small, or the valuation is small. The threshold disclosure policy is optimal when the valuation and the degree of loss aversion are moderate. Furthermore, under the threshold disclosure policy, the increasing degree of loss aversion makes managers be more reluctant to disclose the valuation.