No / The purpose of this paper is to present a critical viewpoint on the negative aspects of market, price and cost transparencies to consumers in terms of its costs. It adopts an inter-disciplinary approach from the marketing, economics and accounting literature. The paper explores market transparency in the ever-changing world and uses brand names like Starbucks and iPhone to illuminate instances where imperfect markets are supported by consumers. Recognizing the role that the Internet plays in promoting price transparency, it espouses how extant information can add costs and risks to the consumer’s value judgement. Finally, the paper advocates that arbitrary judgements existing in cost accounting make it difficult to compare unit cost. This could result in consumers paying extra money to benefit from cost transparency. This paper argues that three main issues may arise in providing unit cost to the consumers. First, transparency entails built-in costs, whether they are in taxes or product prices. Second, in accounting, unit cost information is currently not equitable between businesses. Finally, the paper argues that extra time and effort in making sense of unit cost information lead to questions about the viability of transparent costing. The arguments for transparency have been widely discussed, supported and promoted by many. While negative aspects are known to businesses, few consider the consumer’s perspective. By amalgamating evidence and arguments from different disciplines, this paper lends value, providing a critical perspective where transparent unit cost revelation can be more costly and less viable than what is assumed.

The study explores price transparency in the healthcare system. With the increase in healthcare spending resulting in the advent of high deductible plans, consumers have been exposed to high healthcare cost. Despite being burdened with outrageous and extravagant bills, studies have shown that the consumers are not using price transparency tools to their benefit. The literature review reveals that the major stakeholders in the healthcare industry have never been studied together to understand the research question on ‘Why is there lack of price transparency in the healthcare system?’ moreover, there is no theory to explains this phenomenon. This study undertakes a 360-degree, exhaustive view of all the major stakeholders of the healthcare industry in aims to understand the reasons behind the lack of price transparency in the healthcare system and what is holding the industry back. The study followed a grounded theory methodology approach, utilizing the data from 78 semi-structured interviews. The 78 professionals and executives representing the major stakeholders in the healthcare industry contributed to providing information to uncover the key factors for an opaque healthcare industry. Eighty-five hours of interviews resulted in 1,686 transcribed pages that provided insights and discernment to understanding the complexities and intricacies in the healthcare industry that prevent it from becoming fully transparent. The results provide the richness of data for an emergent theory that explains the actions taken by major stakeholders to reduce healthcare spending based on their intrinsic interests and their perceptions of complexities of the healthcare industry. The study presents practical implications on how a complex industry is slow to evolve and that a change is not possible unless it is deconstructed layer by layer to recognize the root cause. The change has to start from the core by simplifying the complexities that are created over time by the stakeholders who have always looked to optimize their motivations and have had no incentives to make the industry efficient.

Document polyvalent, la thèse a pour ambition de démontrer que le détail juridique que la facture constitue en apparence, peut masquer des problématiques épineuses. La facture a été victime d'un détournement de fonction en raison de la pratique courante de l'insertion de données qui ne figureraient pas sur une facture rudimentaire. Il y a eu une inflation de la charge juridique contenue dans le document. C'est la possibilité du « phénomène contentieux » autour de l'acceptation d'une clause insérée dans la facture qui a permis à cette dernière d'intégrer la sphère contractuelle. Ce mouvement inflationniste s'est doublé d'une appropriation étatique du document. La juridicité du document a été renforcée par le législateur au nom d'un renforcement des conditions de libre concurrence conférant alors au document une dimension technique. Le document est alors marqué du sceau de l'autonomie, celle-ci menaçant alors d'autres droits fondamentaux et notamment, le principe de légalité, au nom d'une transparence invasive. La facture est alors sans aucun doute alors une image double. Ce qui saisit, c'est la trajectoire vécue par un document plus que polyvalent ayant pour point de départ une pratique naturelle et parvenant à un point d'arrivée technique et pesant. Le droit de la facture traduit fidèlement l'état d'un droit sous tension en ce que la législation obligatoire sur la facture est contraignante et ne répond pas aux exigences de sécurité juridique. / Versatile paper, the thesis aims to demonstrate that the legal detail that the bill is apparently can hide thorny issues. The bill was the victim of a function of diversion due to the common practice of inserting data that do not appear on a rudimentary bill. There was an inflation of legal charge contained in the document. It is the possibility of " disputes phenomenon " around the acceptance of a clause in the bill which allowed the latter to integrate the contractual sphere. However, this movement is accompanied by another paradigm shift, when the legislature wished to seize the invoice into a competitive tool. Juridicity document has been strengthened by the legislature in the name of strengthening the conditions of free competition while giving the document a technical dimension. The document is then marked with the seal of autonomy, it then threatening other human rights, including the principle of legality, on behalf of invasive transparency. The invoice is then undoubtedly be a double image. What grabs is the trajectory experienced by a paper more versatile than having to base a natural practice and achieving a technical point of arrival and weighing. The right of the bill accurately reflects the state of a power law in that mandatory legislation on the invoice is binding and does not meet the requirements of legal certainty .

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