Stigler 1961 — "The Economics of Information"; costly search produces price dispersion (JPE 69:213-225)

Claim. Information is a costly economic good; the cost of search produces a distribution of prices in the market rather than a single posted price. The agent that lowers its information cost captures the surplus the disperser leaves.

Quote.

"Market equilibrium will be characterized not by a single price but rather by a distribution of prices… whose variance is related to the cost of searching."

Source. George J. Stigler, "The Economics of Information," Journal of Political Economy 69(3): 213-225 (1961). PDF: uchicago.edu (accessed 2026-06-21). ~3,580+ citations (Semantic Scholar, accessed 2026-06-21).

Confidence. Verified. Academic, no incentive taint. Foundational paper in information economics.

Caveats. Pre-internet framing; modern search costs have collapsed for buyers but not symmetrically for sellers — re-read in 2026 as a thesis about firm information access more than consumer search.

Implication / use. Grounds the pricing decision domain: a firm that can see market price dispersion and its own margins captures surplus that the disperser leaves on the table. This is the cleanest non-commercial foundation for the pricing-edge story.