Consumer Resistance∗

This paper shows that reference-dependent preferences trigger consumer resistance and studies how such consumer behavior impacts pricing and cost communication. We show that consumer resistance reduces the pricing power and profit of the firm. We also show that consumer resistance may provide an incentive for the firm to engage in cost transparency. While cheap communication does not affect consumer behavior, we demonstrate that persuasive communication may increase sales and profit. Finally, we establish that a firm can benefit from operational transparency if cost is monotone increasing in the quality of the production process.