A marketing scheme for making money off innocent people: A user's manual

Kaushik Basu

Economics Letters, 2010, vol. 107, issue 2, 122-124

Abstract: Firms often give away free goods with the product they sell. Firms often give stock options to their managers and employees. Mixing these two practices--giving stocks to consumers who buy the firm's product--creates a deadly brew. People can be lured into buying this product, giving the entrepreneur huge profits and the consumers a growing profit share. But this is a camouflaged Ponzi that will ultimately crash. It is argued, by analogy, that the common practice of giving stock options to employees can be a factor behind financial crashes. Understanding this can help create a better regulatory structure.

Keywords: Marketing; Stock; options; Financial; scams; Product; bundling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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