Deceptive Advertising

Jonathan Zinman and Eric Zitzewitz find that ski resorts self-report substantially more natural snowfall on weekends than during the week, and those with the most to gain exaggerate the most. However, potential consumers are appropriately skeptical of these weekend reports. The researchers find that when a new iPhone application made it easier for skiers to share information about actual ski conditions in real time, the resorts' exaggerated claims fell sharply, especially at those with better iPhone reception.

That is from a new NBER working.paper. The abstract is here.